LI BRARY OF CONGRE SS, j 



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k UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



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THE 



VOTARY. 



A ISTAEEATIVE POEM 



JAMES D. HEWETT. 



C NEW YOEK: 

G. W. CARLETON & CO., PUBLISHERS 

LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO. 



MDCCCLXVII. 

V 



Entered actordini; to Act ol Congress, in the year 1867, by 

GEO. W. CAKLETON & CO. 

In the Clerk's Office of the Dktrict Court for the Southern District of New York. 



Sakin anu Metcalf. 



L'ENVOI 



A ROYAL poem rises like the sun 

In aureate halo on a roseate dawn ; , 

Grows grandly upward, brightening at each step, 

Till in mid-heaven in full hlaz6 it swings, 

And shaketh loose its streaming, burnished locks ; 

Then mellows richly down the coast of noon, 

And splendors to a golden sunset crown. 

But there are lesser planets than the sun. 
The fair moon follows with a tenderer sheen ; 
And, when she sinks in silver shine from sight, 
The cresset stars with diamond sparkle stay. 
World, heed the flicker of a single ray ! 



THE VOTARY 



I. 



Retiring Eve witli beckoning finger signed 
To Niglit, her sister, mantled for lier throne, 
Who in the East's dim portals waiting stood ; 
Then, gathering to her breast her shadowy robes, 
Withdrew within the russet drapery 
Of her august pavilion in the West. 
Night paced with soundless feet up to her -seat. 
And lingering light, before her routed, fled. 
Her star-shot veil, flung loose, swept floating far 
From her swart brow, and trailed like sable fleece 
E-ound her tenebiious feet : the fair full moon 
Glowed in her dusky zone, outshining all 
The shivering splendors of her coronet, 
Like one resplendent pearl, by her caprice 
Set in the girdle of an Orient Queen, 
Arrrayed in state to hold her evening court. 
Her children followed her, — the twain she bore 
To silence at one birth, — blue-lidded Sleep. 

1 



Z THE VOTARY. 

Eager to nestle in the slumbrous depths 

Of drowsy eyes, and languid-limbed Eepose. 

Soon flocks of rosy dreams came drifting down 

Bright streams of moonlight, till they reached the earth, 

Then rose on gossamer wings and darted through 

The brains of slumberers ; and, before they flew 

Away to others, hung a breath above, 

Thrilled with delight to watch the blissful smiles 

Their visions had awoke on dreamers' lips. 

Midsummer's radiant arms now clasped the bowers, 
And in her warm embrace they brightly blushed. 
Like a rich crust of jewels on the sward, 
The night-dew in the elfin moonlight flashed ; 
Or rained in tremulous splendor from the flowers, 
And filled the air with spray of quivering light. 
As in Golconda's richest, secret cave 
The restless hearts of diamonds burst in fire. 
The cricket ticked his little night-watch clear. 
And on the calm, deep breathing of the grove 
The call of wandering night-birds sharply smote. 
These mingled with faint, dreamy murmurs of 
Some fair, fond rose, who, when the wanton breeze, 
Uplifting from her eyes the rosy lids, 
Toyed with her charms, in sleep lisped dreamily 
Unto her lover. 

Nature grew composed. 
And stilled, and calm, before Night's solemn mien ; 
And the mad pulse of life and passion slacked 
Its turbulent ecstasy to measured beat ; 



THE VOTAllY. 

Save where, perchance, in some retired, sweet nook, 
Pairs of fond lovers strayed in dreamy mood, — 
With arms linked tenderly in close caress. 
And lips on which more kisses sweetened than 
Stars brightened in the heavens, — prodigal 
Of honeyed love-talk, solemnized by vows ; 
And Night, to lovers' freaks indulgent, heard 
Without rebuke the secret of their flame : 
Or where wild schemers, mad for gold, revolved 
Their stratagems to rob the treasured earth : 
Or the rapt student delved for precious lore, — 
His brow rimmed with a thoughtful glory pale, — 
For golden truth, puissant, priceless more 
Than all the rich-ored earth's occulted hoards : 
Or poet dreamers, frenzied with delight. 
Burned with the inspiration of the night. 
And knew great joy in their fantastic myths. 
Such rapturists filch ever night's mid-hours 
From sleep, by an o'ermastering passion ruled. 
While slumber's tide with gentle ripple beats 
And surges in the breasts of half the world. 

With fitful step, across a verdurous lawn 

Close venueing a dwelling, paced a youth. 

His face was damp with the sweet dews of night. 

And crossed with lines of musing, while his eyes 

Were hazy with thick clouds of revery. 

As twilight seas asleep in amber mist. 

His gait, which faltered now as if regret 

And sadness spread their languor through his limbs, 



4 THE VOTARY. 

Now broke out into fierce and eager strides 
When stirring thoughts flamed up ablaze within. 
As morn of summer was his aspect fair ; 
But, as wiseacres of a genial dawn 
Predict the fervid heats of burning noon, 
So those in men, as these in weather, wise, 
Had augured from the shifting, ominous gleams, 
That flashed, like smothered fire, athwart his eyes, 
The high heat of a fierce, ambitious noon. 
At last, half wearied by the tumult of 
Conflicting thoughts, he cast himself upon 
A mossy, rustic bench, 'neath clustered arch 
And leafy, blossomed garlands drooping thick, 
And voiced his bosom's theme in stormy wise : — 

" To-morrow, goal of all the hopes and dreams 

Of all my youth, toward which my soul hath reached 

With hungry arms, seal of my manhood, ay ! 

Til' initial day of my soul's darling work, 

With which my fate rides freighted, a new launch, — 

At last I've toiled up to thee through my youth. 

And stand alone and joyful on the beach 

Whereon my manhood's surging billows beat. 

Far o'er that stormy sea, Fame dwells apart. 

And he must bravely cruise, and dauntlessly. 

Battling with adverse winds and currents, who 

Would moor his bark upon her golden strand. 

But still the heart says, ' Ah ! this parting pang ! ' 

And love's delicious accents sigh, ' Remain ! ' 

Wbere is thy sneer, strong soul, for the weak heart 



THE VOTARY. 

AVlio, cowardj shrinketh to weigh anchor for 

The voyage that shall land me on Fame's shores ! 

An ancient faith of past heroic days 

Converted heroes, when they went from earth, 

To shining planets in yon glorious spheres ; 

While meaner souls it drove away in herds, 

To strew with golden dust the milky way. 

Great ones of eld drew from their mothers' breasts, 

Methinks, with milk, immortal precepts, thus : 

^ So strive, my nursling, that thy soul may blaze 

A fixed star in the solitude of space, 

And not be merged in that dim multitude 

Of specks that complicate the milky way. 

Aspire, my babe, to set thy name upon 

Fame's blazoned scroll. Know that no pen writes there 

But wielded by a hand that all men dread j 

And it must set a name conspicuous 

Among the mighty that men venerate.' 

Such lullaby composed the cradles of 

Great chieftains once, and toned their infant souls. 

Such firebrands kindled them to famous deeds. 

Napoleon, the mounting soul that leapt 

The world o'er with his daring eyes, and raised 

His foot, colossal Europe to bestride, 

Trode up ambition's heights with kingly walk : 

And if, throned on the summit once, he fell. 

That fall was glory, and no shame, which shook 

A continent, and made its leaguered hosts 

Quake in their bloody battle-harness, and 

Pause doubtful, poised 'twixt victory and' fear. 



6 THE VOTARY. 

That steadfast soul 
Spurned all for Fame, throttled his i^leading heart, 
And flung the violated victim on 
The shrine of his devotion and his life ; 
He crushed that bosom, with relentless heel, 
On which love's most luxurious feast he'd held, 
And dashed aside your luscious passion draught 
When Fame's imperious note rang on his ear. 
If weakly Antony spurned earth's waiting throne 
For a lewd queen's soft bosom of delight, 
The great Gaul quitted for that throne a clasp 
Beside whose chastely ravishing embrace 
A nauseous sty was Egypt's common breast. 
Fame is the mightiest rock in life's great main, 
Toward which brave souls, like emulous swimmers, strain. 
Renown survives heroic lives, as rays 
Of stars, long after they are blotted out 
From space, are visible to mortal eyes. — 
But, hark ! my violet-eyed ! " 

A voice uprose 
Upon the murmurous cadence of the night. 
Faint as a drowsy lily's lullaby, 
Smit with the passion of the rose's core. 

" Now the night-fairies sip 

From the bright burnished lip 
Of a fair golden chalice, the brimmed butter-cup ; 

And with glancing feet strew 

The sweet, odorous dew. 
Whose redolent nectar they greedily sup. 



THE VOTARY. 7 

" My tuned heart's tense cliords sleep, 

For alone 'neatli the sweep 
Of wild love's master hand may their melody wake ; 

And the thirsts of my soul, 

That my being control, 
In love's mystic responses alone can I slake. 

" Hear ! ye fair fays who dance 

In the moon's silver glance, 
Leave ye now your blithe gambols and list to my plaint ! 

Go, elves, seek ye my lord 

And bear to him this word. 
That I pine for his coming, love-yearning and faint ! 

" And then, for your reward. 

While ye dance on the sward. 
Our joined hearts' wakened music shall quicken your feet ; 

For when young hearts unite 

On a moonlighted night. 
Love's full melody swelleth, transportingly sweet." 

His pulses thrilled, and with wide-parted lips, 
By sudden passion deeper crimson-stained. 
Upstarted from his languid attitude. 
He stood a moment flushed and radiant. 
All heart and ears, his eager eyes ablaze ; 
Then, scattering glistering dew with hasty feet, 
He sprang on quickly, till he paused beneath 
An open casement, where a maiden stood. 



8 THE VOTARY. 

Two short, sharp cries blent in one passionate breath, 

A hastily kissed flower fell fluttering down, 

And hardly had it touched his outstretched palm 

Before she came adown the cypress walk. 

With eyes love-dreamy, and with cheek aglow. 

With the sweet, swimming bashfulness of gait 

Of shy virginity, the maiden came. 

Timid and faltering, yet void of fear. 

Confidingly, with all that trembling trust 

That mighty love inspires a warm maid with 

In her young heart's bright hero, to the night 

Hersehf she did commit, and bore with her, 

Por her defence from harm, that purity. 

And virgin faith in him, which had been shield 

E'en from unhallowed passion's wiliest lure. 

Ardent as he, with maidenly reserve, 

No shade of prudery, she gave to him 

Divine elysium on her dewy mouth : 

He, fain to linger on those humid banks, 

Cooled his hot lips in their sweet honey-dews, 

And laved his burning eyes in violet seas of bliss. 

He revelled thus till passion gave him breath 

To speak love-words, which foamed up from his heart 

As the tossed surge which the deep, heaving sea 

Flings on the shore ; those magic sentences 

By eyes and lips in concert syllabled ; 

Lore by love's mystic instinct first divined, 

Love's utterance, to lovers only known. 

" I feel the witchery of thy signal song 

Yet on me, and its glamour," murmured he. 



THE VOTARY. 

" How fair tliou look'st^ more fair than Oyntliia, 
Though she, by night, was peerless. Thou hast been 
Communing with her, and she, grateful for 
Thy sympathy, has spiritualized thee. Nay ! 
I'll sound the depths of those blue orbs, or, love, 
I'll drown in them, and find delicious death." 

" Drown, cruellest. I'll kiss thee back to life. 

Or, failing, sigh my soul out on thy lips. 

And overtake thine e'er it reach the clouds. 

But stay ! your coming half hath made me to forget, 

And laid the haunting shadow of to-day ! " 

And love's warm hue, scared by the spectre Dread, 

Pled from her cheek, and left it white and cold. 

He sought to lure it back by tender speech : 

" Sybilla, nay ! to-morrow though I go, 

Fame won, all eagerly to thee again 

I'll hasten back, this breast my home. 

Thou sigh'st ! 
Sweet, do not cloud remembrance of this night. 
Which must be Memory's crowning jewel hence. 
By sad foreboding. Nay ! those pleading eyes ! 
Thou know'st for thee I would be famous. Thou'dst 
Not have me march unknown, unnoted by, 
A common soldier in the ranks of life ? 
Thy lord should be a foremost captain, with 
Full many a dear bought battle-flag unfurled." 

" Will words as loving cluster on the lips 

Of that proud chieftain, will his heart not grow 



10 THE VOTAKY. 

More hard with all those battle scars and seams 
Won wresting all those trophies from the field ? 
Should it prove so, I'd deem my warrior brought 
A poor exchange, in all these honors, for 
The tender beating heart I knew of old. 
But, nay ! I will not doubt thee, Eudiger, 
NoE irk thee further by these woman fears. 
My true love, only keep thy heart for me, 
The world must have thy genius, it is fit. 
Thou thirstest so for greatness, not as I 
Content to live well blessed in love, and deem 
The labor for the great ends which Fame crowns 
Far nobler than the dazzling crown itself. 
'Tis well, 'tis well, perforce. Gro, genius, go ! 
'There is no scope for thy ambition here ; 
Go thou, but leave with me thy heart." 

" List, love. 
'Tis a bright flower, thy love, surpassing all 
The rest, and shall be worn upon the front 
Of honor's shining chaplet, and shall be 
The loveliest in that rare coronal. 
It should be set upon no meaner crown ; 
That crown it is, Sybilla, I would have, 
And 'tis for thee that most I covet it." 
" Ah, no ! " she sighed, " I fancy, were I dead, 
You'd covet it as much to wear yourself 
In triumph, not to lay upon my grave." 
He chid her with a lover's blow, a kiss, 
Returned at once, and many an one was dealt 
Before the duel ended, — but at last 



THE VOTARY. 11 

She yielded to her conqueror, and he, 

With victory flushed, pushed his advantage up, 

And to his former theme returned anew. 

" Last night I trode a great man's banquet haU. 

Brave men were there, — Columbia's ruling souls ; 

And beauty, rank, and wealth, high festival 

Held proudly. But among the rest there walked 

One who, albeit, sprung from ignoble source. 

Had risen high in Fame's bright firmament. 

Eclipsing all, as does the noon-day sun 

Fade into hopeless dimness all the stars. 

His lofty brow, behind which lay great thoughts 

In rich profusion, gleamed out still and grand 

Above his lucent eyes, like a tall ledge 

Of mountain granite, whose unmoved front 

O'erhanging shining lakes, — their crystal depths 

With fine reflections thick-caught from the skies 

Arching o'erhead, — conceals far, far within 

In subterranean caverns deep, remote, 

Unfathomed treasures of the miser earth. 

To him all bowed, rank, genius, beauty, all ; 

And their instinctive homage he received 

With courteous, calm, and lofty dignity ; 

By men's admiring reverence all unmoved 

As mighty Chimborazo, when before 

Her awful j)eak the traveller kneels aghast. 

Fame's lustrous halo glory-crowned his head 

As the sun's risen beam earth's topping peak." 

" But, looked he happy, does this glory shed 



12 THE VOTARY. 

One gleam of liappy sunshine on his heart? 

Poor glory that, to comfort so the pride. 

And leave the heart to starve and shrivel up ! " 

" Nay ; no heart-break the lines of that face told. 

His sun of love must melt the proudest fair ; 

Ko heart of woman could withstand the shock, 

The electric passion-shock, of such a love 

As that which in a soul like his is horn. 

I read the ill-concealed traces of 

Their ruling passions limned on other men ; 

Avarice, envy, swollen pride, and all 

The petty vices that demean men's souls ; 

But when I turned to him there saw I naught 

But a great orb of power, surpassing bright, * 

Unmoved, majestic, and how grandly calm, 

Untouched by meaner passions. 

Oh ! but for 
One hour to walk in men's sight so august, 
I'd barter ages of these sorry days ! " 
The hot blood flushed his face, and warmed his brain, 
And fired his eyes that blazed as though old wine 
Ban riot in his veins. 

" A great, calm God," 
Sybilla said, with the least little dash 
Of banter, " made of marble, cold and hard. 
This God would do to set up in the squares 
For th' people, of their Sunday holidays. 
To crowd about, and stare in awe upon." 



THE VOTARY. 13 

" Nay, but to rule their councils, lead them on 

To greatness, conquest ; one whom nations choose 

To build them up to loftiest altitude." 

'^ Kow hear me tell/' said she, " of a renown 

More deathless, — more imperishable far. 

One of great heart, by all who knew him loved, 

Not bowed before in. awful worship, but 

Kevered and cherished for his gracious acts ; 

Dear to the people for that they were dear 

To him, — not held by him as means to mount 

Up to high place, — their greatest good his care. 

True to his heart, and thirsting not for praise. 

A glory rested on his face, which was 

Not the cold pride world-worship has begot. 

Nor yet the splendid glare of genius, but 

A pure glow, as if all the holy thoughts, 

That centred in his soul, were working out 

An outward glory on his lineaments. 

Were both this moment wrecked, and stranded on 

The dreary waste of Eternity's bleak beach, 

You'd see the calm strength of my hero far 

Transcending your's with all his pride and power. 

He's past, but lingers still. Know, Eudiger, 

We feel the influence of such men's lives 

Long after them ; as on a sultry day 

The hot, sun-wilted traveller, walking 'neath 

The dripping trees, believes that still it rains 

When the refreshing shower is o'er." 

" Enthusiast ! 
But see, dear heart, yon moony hill invites. 



14 THE VOTARY. 

Come, then ; a niglit so fair doth swell the sweet, 

Full fonts of love in the fond heart, till they 

O'erflow the soul with their delicious waves. 

Each moonlight night like this, when gales make love 

And chase each other o'er the cool, green hills, 

While their soft love-sighs music all the air, 

I'll hreak from toil ; and you, Sybilla, then 

Watch yonder star, as I will do, until 

Our souls shall blend in spiritual embrace ; 

And as it brighter grows than all its mates, 

Then fancy 'tis th}'' hero-lover's fame 

That reddens in the zenith. Let those eyes, 

With violet depths so full of tenderness, 

Eead in that planet's throbbing light the love 

For thee with which my being is aflame : 

Then breathe a prayer with those ambrosial lips, 

Whose potent fragrance now revives my soul. 

That I may thus transcend the worldly throng 

As that king-star outrays night's brilliant hosts. 

Pour on it then, as now thou dost on me, 

The sumptuous richness of those dreamy eyes. 

And I will drink it in, though not as now 

'Tis mixed with honey from thy luscious lips. 

Oh ! Charms and answering love like this, mine own, 

Might tempt a zealot from his tug for fame, — 

And yet that one, whose godlike valor is 

The boast of these tame latter ages, did 

Relinquish bliss like this at the behest 

Of his ambition." 

"Dost thou praise " said she, 



THE VOTARY. 15 

" That cruel, tragic deed, that fatal act ? 

Heaven frowned upon it, fortune afterward 

Deserted him at sorest need, for it. 

And St. Helena was its penalty. 

Then pity, not applaud, the fatal chance." 

He smiled upon the sweet enthusiast. 

And Jet the question pass without debate. 

" Fame was a tempting toy, at least, to him 

Who left to clutch it such a loving breast. 

Seraphs can boast of no diviner thrill 

Than in her sumptuous clasp the Conqueror knew.'' 

A thought chased from her cheek its vivid rose. 

" Nay, theirs is something far diviner, love ; 

Gone all this feverish want, uneasy need, 

Which makes our mortal love so restless ; there 

Lovers may gaze into each other's eyes 

For all eternity, nor wish aught beyond." 

" Warm-lipped, rose-cheeked, down-breasted, beautiful ! 

That were a meagre Paradise for man. 

This clasp, warm-blooded, were more worth by far. 

To watch in a chaste maiden's eyes the flame 

Of passion held in close subjection to 

Inviolate chastity, 'tis love's sweet right. 

Give me thy lips ! Thy moon-gilt hair floats o'er 

Thine ivory neck ; those swimming, violet orbs 

Great lakes of love in which I'd freely dip. 

Again thy lips ; thy moist palm thrills to mine. 

Why dost thou freeze and shudder quick, as if 

A cold blast chilled thy blood, Sybilla ? Nay, 



16 THE VOTARY. 

The breezes all are warm in unison 

With this rich hour of love. Why tremble, lips ? 

I'll hold thee still with mine ! '' 

She lay o'ercome, 
Beneath his passion's driving fury and 
A stormy gust of kisses, in his arms. 
She half shrank from his venturous embrace « 

A moment, but, repenting soon, returned 
Unto the shelter of her lover's arm. 
Soon, " See," she cried, " we've wandered far. Yon is 
The hut of that wild beldam, mad old Madge. 
Thou know'st her piteous story ? " 

" Ay, it is 
The old, old tale, as ancient as is sin ; 
Passion, brief joy, desertion and despair." 
" Yes," said the maiden pitifully, " and 
The world was harsh and called her foul, the while 
It lightly blamed the other's greater sin. 
She crazed, and ever since has been so fierce 
That few e'er venture to molest her here. 
She now is old and hideous, and, they say. 
Hates with a bitter malice all mankind. 
The village teents with stories of her ; some. 
The ignorant and superstitious, think 
She is a witch in league with wicked fiends. 
Ha ! Look, 'tis she ! " 

She shrank and paled in dread. 
" Fear not, nor tremble thus, thou quaking bird, 
We must confront her. Fear not, trembling dove ! " 



. THE VOTARY. 17 

A withered crone strode wildly up to them. 

Straggling in tangled mass, her elfin locks 

Streamed round a haggard face distained and marred. 

She raised her skinny arm with gesture bold. 

And laughed derisively in mocking tone. 

" Know'st not thou that 'tis I alone reign here, — 

Here where night-demons rave in darkness, here 

With owl and toad and serpent I prevail, — 

Where poisonous reptiles, man's fell enemies. 

The storm fiends and the gibbering imps of sin, 

Goblins and unclean spirits howl by night 

And horrid orgies hold with damned glee. 

Abide I. Would you have a baneful charm 

To taint the life-blood of your deadliest foe 

With festering poison or rank pestilence, 

To wring a rival's heart with savage pang. 

Or gall your neighbor ? Thou shalt have it, but 

Be wary or 'twill work its harm on you ! " 

Sybilla shuddered 'neath her fiery eye, 

But Budiger griped her arm with nervous grasp 

And forced her from the path. 

"Nay, woman, nay, 
Silence your foul-mouthed ribaldry for shame ! 
All have their wrongs, but all the wronged, as you. 
Do not malign the Fates ; or, if they did. 
One fearful curse of earth would smite heaven's gates, 
Reverberate, rebound, and shatter her 
With all her million, mad, blaspheming tongues." 
With hateful leer the crazy hag rejoined, 
" Who cannot prate ? The chewing kine, who sees 

2* 



18 



THE VOTARY. 



His brother stagger 'neath the slaughterer's stroke, 
Champs on his cud as calmly as before ; 
But once let drive the steel upon his head, 
He'll bellow then as madly as the rest. 
Preach on, my master, but when troubles come 
You'll be the very first to cast away 
Your cold philosophy. 

You might as well 
In the dull ear of a cold, shrouded girl 
Mutter love's mean deceit in honeyed lies 
As resignation to a wretch like me. 
Wonld those late vows make whole her broken heart, 
Or bring the life-blood to that frozen cheek ? 
Sin's victim I, and not her worker first. 
Till the world maddened me by its cold scorn. 
'Tis Heaven that doth ordain all things, you say ; 
Heaven, then, pursues me with malignant fate. 

God is my enemy " 

" Hold ! impious wretch ! " 
Said Eudiger. 

But with a pitying voice 
Sybilla interposed : 

"Poor soul, we'd be 
Thy friends. Nay ! why that spiteful glare on us ? 
We never wronged thee." 

'^ Ne'er wronged me ! " she shrieked j 
" Art thou not human, then ; art devils, — else 
Thou liest, for fiends alone molest me not. 
What else for years but frightful injury 
Has earth done unto me ? Are not both men 



THE VOTARY. 19 

And God my bitter^ rancorous enemies ? " 

They shuddered at her imprecations which, 

Too foul to hear, she uttered thick and fast. 

He stayed her curses with rebuking voice. 

" Dare not to hurl thy accusations vain 

In face of Heaven ; as storm-beat, boiling waves 

In foolish wrath and futile fury beat 

The unmoved shore, whose vasty breast sustains ! " 

"Forbear," Sybilla whispered, " she is mad." 

Then, turning to her, said in softest tones, 

" The holy heart beneath misfortune is 

E'er tenderer, purer, and more beautiful ; 

As summer foliage, beat by driving storms, 

Is brighter when the tempest's rage is past. 

Misfortune's rain doth wash away sin stains 

Gathered in tainting contact on the heart, 

As do the cleansing thunder-storms remove 

The sullying dust from off the forest leaves." 

The gentle answer pacified her not. 

But she stalked muttering off, and they strolled on 

In silence and abstraction, hand in hand. 

Rudiger mused in inward whisper, thus : 

" 'Tis ever such, the direful passion-wreck, — 

Wreck all unlike that of Fame's votaries ; 

They who from lofty niches fall, and shake 

The earth till every creature trembleth. 

If I must fall, let not my fall be like 

Th' ignoble lapse of passion's weakly tools. 

But such a crash as takes the world's proud ear. 

And makes the haughty mistress quake and pale." 



20 THE VOTARY. 

Unconscious of his thoughts she walked by him, 

Her eyes fixed on the tremulous vault o'erhead 

Eich with its fervid freight of restless fires. 

The spirit-look soon faded from her face 

As Eudiger's warm fingers stirred her pulse. 

An hour they roamed and whispered dreamily, 

Keaping love's lavish harvest of fond vows, 

And then they turned toward Sybilla's home. 

" Twine now,'' said she, " this hour with strings of rhyme/' 

" That were to over-dress it ; 'tis so decked 

Already with those fine, rare ornaments. 

Thy charms, it struts among its fellows, vain.'' 

" Say a farewell at least to these fair shades. 
'Twas here, beneath these listening trees, you first 
Sank in the deep, glad waters of my heart 
The anchor of your love ; o'er it they closed 
In happy, sweet delight. Ne'er drag it up. 
And sail away, dear captain, wilt thou, to 
New anchorage, soever blue the waves ? 
Call up the rapt look to thine eye ! Nay, then, 
Must I inspire you ? 

See, these dew-drops on 
The flowers and trees are tears : they weep that thou 
Wilt leave thy love alone. Go not without 
A musical farewell ! " 

He shook the dew 
Prom off a rose, who bent her graceful head, 
And shed the sparkling load. 



THE VOTAKY. 21 

" Look, sweet," said he, 
'* Their tears are dried. No more for me they weep. 
To-morrow they'll refresh another with 
Their halmy breath. So wilt not thou, mine own. 
All my farewell belongs alone to thee." 
She laid her bright head lovingly upon 
His breast, and raised to his her moistened eyes, 
Which glowed like violets through a dewy mist. 

And so they parted with a long arm strain. 
Another kiss, and yet another, till 
They followed countless, and grew into one 
Long swoon of intermingled bliss and pain. 
With sudden, nervous start, he loosened her ; 
A thrill, a sigh,- a pang, beseeching eyes. 
And then the man's will tore his heart away. 
Oh, tender woman ! were it left to thee 
To end these partings, they'd forever last. 

She stood quite motionless until she saw 
Him vanish 'neath the shadow of the grove, 
Then, with faint pulse and dull and laggard step, 
She gained the broad steps. 

Late at night she rose 
And to her moonlit casement softly stole. 
A cloud obscured the star which he had named 
Love's Sentinel. She watched it till it past, 
Her true heart beating with a perfect faith. 
Her true eyes welling o'er with wistful tears ; 
And then she stole back to her tearful sleep. 



^*2 



THE VOTARY. 



The calm niglit-spirits watching round her couch 
Admiring smiled, and kissed her virgin brow. 

All sleep was banished from his teeming brain, 
And flushed and fevered all the night he tossed, 
While visions of Ambition haunted him. 
The face of her he loved was present, too, 
Smiling so sadly mid its golden hair ; 
But those wild visions of ambition came 
Ever between him and her loving eyes. 

" My life, my soul, my brain, all at thy feet. 
Thou sun-eyed image. Fame, I cast with joy. 
Hot, frantic, seething with desire for thee. 
Soul-earnest, eager as fond Orpheus 
Seeking his lost love 'mong fierce flames of hell ! 
See, see, great spirit, see thy Votary ! " 

The cloud that moment crost the Sentinel Star, 
And the sleep guardians shuddered round his head. 



THE VOTARY. 23 



II. 



Mat's stormy heralds all came blustering in, 

And she, young queen, new-crowned, with her gay train 

Of sunny courtiers followed. Fain to please, 

They laid aside the gorgeous, glaring tints 

They love to flaunt in Summer's golden court, 

And sought to catch her dainty fancy with 

Pale crocuses, snow-drops, and hyacinths. 

Eager and hold to fire her with his love. 

The Sun addressed her with his blandest beams ; 

And all the elements, her suitors too. 

Assumed their most engaging, genial mien 

To win her favor. 

Nature's face grew glad 
Beneath her winsome smile and sunny eyes, 
And, turning, weary from the iron reign 
Of Winter, hailed the dawn of golden days 
Beneath the gentle sceptre of young May. 

A roaming morning breeze stole in upon 
A student toiling in his lonely room, 



24 THE VOTARY. 

Bent o'er old musty pages, whence all night 

He had been gathering gems of olden lore. 

It breathed upon his blue-veined lids, and played 

About his heated temples till it called 

His eager mind off from exhausting work. 

He turned his pallid brow to the fresh air, 

Which streamed in at the casement open flung. 

His strained eyes rested with a grateful sense 

Of coolness and refreshment on the scene 

Without, where all things breathed of Spring's new life. 

A night-storm, like a nightmare, left the sky 

Oppressed w4th vagrant clouds like vague alarms, 

Which daylight and awaking put to flight. 

The hills looked dreamy, wrapped in a light fleece 

Of vapor like a coverlet of down, 

Their purple profiles indistinctly traced 

On the horizon ; and th' impatient sun. 

Intent on visiting the earth, broke through 

And put to rout the frightened ranks of clouds 

Which formed presumptuously in his path. 

Up to the hills' feet crept the moist, green vales. 

And struggled hard to climb their rugged sides. 

The saintly spires and mist-enchanted towers 

Were shining in the vaporous morning air, 

While their sweet tongues were slowly wagging with 

A summons to the early matins, for 

It was the blessed Easter season. 

This 
Delicious scene roused Hudiger ; he drank 



THE VOTARY. 25 

The air, as wine, from all the myriad urns 
Which liberal Nature emptied far and wide. 

" All Nature, on this joyous day, meseems, 

Is celebrating some centennial ; 

And all the elements attend the feast, 

Each in gay holiday array. The Sun, 

To lead the revelry, despatches all 

His gladdest, brightest, much-rejoicing beams. 

The breezes, hand in hand, come whispering 

Like happy lovers, with soft, balmy breath ; 

And earth's freed waters dance with joy along, 

Laughing and leaping in high festive glee 

To join the carnival. Urged forth by all 

This jubilant, elemental harmony. 

The vegetable world puts freshly forth 

Clad for the gala all anew in green. 

A century ago this festal day. 

Perchance, some pale and brooding student in 

His silent cell, apart from noise and men, 

Conceived a grand and sinewy thought, and for 

Its shining service in the cause of truth 

Our kindly mother solemnizes thus 

Its natal day. She, seeing far, doth prize 

The silent hour when living thoughts are born. 

Beyond the loud parade that celebrates 

Their christening by the world, and thus doth give 

The glory to the real author, though, 

Perhaps forgotten or unknown by men, 

In some unnoted corner of the earth 

3 



26 THE VOTARY. 

He sleeps, unconscious of their praise or slight, — 
The crown that Fame had fashioned for his brow- 
Usurped, or flaunted by another to 
Th' admiring eyes of an applauding world. ' 
Kind Nature ! who, impatient of the fraud 
Which hath despoiled his name of Fame on earth, 
Art offering upon his lonely grave 
Thy meed of praise in this high pomp to-day, 
To join his paean I unite with thee.'' 

He ceased and sat in light, mute revery. 

His pallid face had changed much in few years. 

The omens of fierce noon that threatened once 

Now, more portentous, waxed toward noon's full strength. 

The struggling fire of young ambition, now 

Confirmed into a strong and vivid blaze. 

Burnt steadily and brightly in his eyes. 

The freshness of the face had faded, and 

His brow, once tinged with healthy rose, was blanched 

By passion, toil, and keen expectancy. 

While dry, hot lips told of the fever heat 

At which ambition kept his young blood up. 

But what in the warm, sanguine, sunny hues 

Of youth's endearing, frank ingenuousness. 

His face had lost forever, it had gained 

In strong expression, and the confidence 

Of an experience more mature ; that look 

Of much world-wisdom, %fe«fcttwhich nothing else 

Will age the countenance of man so soon : 

A barter which the wise world doth esteem 



THE VOTARY. 27 

A fortunate one, and liiglily cloth commend ; 

But which a mother, to an instinct of 

Her nature true, doth ever dread to see 

Steal fi'om her hoy's face its sweet, childhood look. 

A patient study he had made the world ; 

And the hard lines that wavered round his mouth 

Betokened he had profited tlierehy. 

Men marked him now and knew him rising fast. 

His constancy, enthusiasm, pains. 

Had even made the selfish crowd look up, 

Delving on in the mud and slime of earth 

At the unending human grope for gold. 

A statesman had hecome the patron of 
Young Budiger, — statesman at least in name 
And office, — and the people called him great. 
'Twas douhtful whether Budiger deemed him 
One of those master minds that sway the world. 
Some keep step with, nor lag hehind, the ranks 
Of the fast-marching age; while others, formed 
By nature for fore-captains, take the lead ; 
And lordly souls like these control and rule 
The boisterous sea of public sentiment. 
The mystery he fathomed, how some have 
By circumstance, or adventitious means 
Of some sort, been uplifted, as does ice, 
Forming on heavy stones in river-beds, 
By its inherent lightness lift them up 
To float upon the surface of the stream. 
Let the ice melt, and they relapse again 



28 THE VOTARY. 

To their obscurity of pristine mud ; 
So men revert to native nothingness, 
Those who have risen on void, fictitious grounds, 
When their weak props of circumstances melt. 
But whether one of these his patron was 
It mattered not, for men had given him 
A pinnacle in their esteem. He saw 
Full many such on every side he looked. 
Some high in station o'er our darling land. 
This dangerous wrong he bitterly deplored. 
The sacred guards that cluster round our orb 
Of Liberty, should be great, earnest souls. 
Men of a high and holy purpose, minds 
Sublime and wise and strong and splendid as 
The statesmen stars about their empress moon, 
With eager vigilance who watch her climb 
Up to her zenith. 

But the statesman saw 
In Eudiger those powers, intentness, and 
Besolved ambition, potent to surmount 
All stop or let to final eminence. 
So, with the selfish generosity 
Of worldly calculation, to the youth 
He lent his influential patronage. 
Assured that from that protege's success 
The world would argue wisdom in himself. 

Among the lessons Rudiger had learned 
Had been that dangerous, sometimes fatal one 
Unto the conscience of aspiring youth, 



THE VOTARY. 29 

That craft and shrewdness are more potent oft 

Than plain desert to further worldly ends. 

He saw around in lofty eminence ' 

Great minds, great souls, whose genius should have gilt 

Columbia's head with an immortal sheen, 

Lending their powerful intellects to the side 

Of self-advancement and of party craft. 

The most he found adepts in stratagem 

By which they'd clomb to their proud posts of state; 

And few who ever placed the public weal 

Above the thonght of private interest. 

At first this ever shocks the young enthusiast, 

Fresh from the glorious and frenzied dreams 

Of youth's ideal of greatness and of Fame, — 

The eloquent and heroic visions of 

Unworld-tried souls ; but 'tis not long before 

They overcome the first revolt, and ere 

Enthusiasm can recover from 

The disenchantment of reality. 

He was not one to witness the tournay 

Of vying and competing men, and not 

Catch the wild, emulous spirit of the joust. 

Soon 'mong the foremost, eager in the fray. 

His crest was seen, and men made way for him. 

He would have trembled had he realized 

How great the change he must have undergone 

Before he smiled at the dire spectacle 

Of daily and continual vice and wrong. 

Which first had horrified and sickened him. 

Thus the first gulf was passed ; that strong outwork 



30 THE VOTARY. 

Against the siege of sin, the sensitive 

And tender conscience of unhardened youth, 

Was carried at the onset by assault. 

Not that sin's bold caress seduced him, — he 

Had not yet stooped from honor by one act, 

But lost the sensitive impressions of 

Young innocence in the coarse, jarring crowd; 

And, what was still more perilous, he was 

Unconscious of the loss he had sustained. 

Thus, like shorn Samson, he unwittingly 

Had been betrayed, and cheated of that strength 

Which, like a crown of might about his head, 

Had frighted coward foes from the assault, 

And borne him mail-proof through temptation's toils. 

He was Ambition's Votary : to Fame 

His life, his strength, his intellect were pledged ; 

And abstractly he recognized the fact 

That 'twas the ruling spirit of his life. 

Unto whose power o'er him all else must bend. 

Yet he brought not the living image home 

Of the enthralment of his nature to 

The mastery he confessed. Ambition yet 

Had not asserted its dominion o'er 

His heart, which still was free to bear the yoke 

Of love alone, — a yoke so sweet to wear 

That men assume it eagerly. So from 

Present immunity his heart felt not 

The danger of the struggle to ensue. 

Should e'er his autocrat demand at her 



THE VOTARY. 31 

\ 

Proud shrine the immolation of his love. 
As he sat drinking in 
Th' invigorating air, the thought of her 
Came o'er his spirit as the balmy breath 
Of spring o'er his strained, weary senses. He 
Drew forth a missive that had lately come 
From her, and read, 

" Nay ! do not rail at me. 
The perfect bliss to which love e'er aspires 
Is not of earth. Ah ! were I by thy side 
I know that thou would' st look reproach, and chide. 
But, Rudiger, when first you talked of Fame, 
And I beheld your soul's unsatisfied, 
Hankering disquiet, first I felt like this. 
On earth no music else charms so mine ears 
As, leaning on thy breast, to hear tliy heart. 
Love's instrument, strike harmony with mine. 
The sweet duet of two love-beating hearts. 
But even in that witching melody 
There is a jarring discord from the world. 
My love ! I long to have thee in some sphere. 
Where love alone can enter from the world. 
And all our wild heart's passionate unrest 
Subside into a calm security 
Of an entire, complete fruition. Oh ! 
If our love here, which hath an earthy tang. 
So rapturous be, what were its transports then 
When spiritualized in Immortality. 
The numb philosophy, by pedants taught, 
That Paradise dissolves peculiar ties. 



32 , THE VOTARY. 

Which bind two human hearts in union close, 

And merges theirs in th' universal flood 

Of love which deluges the courts of heaven, 

I cannot own. There is no need to think 

That the fast clinging of two hearts doth wrong 

The general love that we should bear toward all. 

Our God, who here doth hallow it, in heaven 

Will render it twice sanctified and pure. 

And though ambition should divide thy heart 

With love on earth, love claims the whole in heaven. 

Naught but the peijury of one can tear 

Our souls asunder in eternity, — 

Thou'rt not that traitor, darling, nor am I." 

He placed the letter in his breast. 

"Lie there, 
And if it may, let thy pure faith impress 
Its tender beauty on my wayward heart." 
He turned again unto his book, and thought's 
Pale flame, rekindled in his brain, lit up 
His studious brow with its white, steadfast ray. 

Anon a shadow flitted o'er his page. 

He, glancing quickly up, saw Adelaide, 

The statesman's daughter, proud as Juno, with 

A face and form of regal beauty, such 

As painters limn when they'd depict a queen. 

Her sumptuous form was clad in emerald silk ; 

An India shawl fell lightly from a neck 

And shoulders statuesquely beautiful. 

Her radiant face and splendid hazel eyes. 



THE VOTARY. 3.3 

Full of fine crystal gleams, were softened by 
A snowy veil of rarest frost-work lace ; 
She wore her rich attire with dainty grace, 
And shone in splendor as her native right, 
As the magnolia shines upon her stem, 
The rightful heiress of her glossy leaves. 

" Sir Student ! fair good-morrow," said she, " I 

Am peeping in to catch a glimpse of this 

Dull oyster here. Nay ! shrink not in thy shell ! 

Behold ! the royal morning walks abroad ! 

Wilt thou to church with me ? Thou'rt weary, sure. 

Here is thy candle, burnt to death last night ; 

A martyr at the stake, who, in thy cause, 

All night has suffered, and when gray dawn came 

And thou no more required'st her martyrdom. 

Sank fainting and expired. Thou torturer ! 

I think you need indeed to go to church." 

He joined her at the gate. The lady held 

Her vein of raillery. 

" I wonder much 
How, on such gaJa days of Nature, you 
Endure in your drear cell to ponder o'er 
Those tiresome books, the horrid, musty things ? 
I think you'd be worse than the very grub 
That feasts upon my father's learned shelves. 
And ne'er crawl out at all, wer't not that I 
Stirred you at times by dusting the old tomes." 
She whipped her gilded prayer-book, as she spoke. 
With gossamer handkerchief, then added with 



34 THE VOTARY. 

An arch and sidelong glance, " You worship, sir, 
With too blind adoration. Know you not 
Tliat any mistress, even Fame, will tire 
To see her lover ever kneeling at 
Her feet?" 

" Ah ! lady, lovers ne'er are wise. 
Let us poor slaves but stare at beauty's face 
We are content. Now, were I not indeed 
So far gone, I might be more politic.'^ 
He spoke thus in a playful badinage, 
And then, flushed with deep earnest, added, " But 
My mistress, lady, is no faithless one, 
Nor bend I listlessly beneath her eyes. 
Of ardent, striving souls she will not tire." 
" Be not o'er confident ; I've heard of men, 
No drones, but fervid, toiling laborers, 
After a long, devoted wooing, struck 
Cold with her scorn and killed by her neglect." 

" 'Twere worth the risk to venture for the prize. 
How fair the morning is ! Like a new bride 
Th' rejoicing landscape basks beneath the smile 
Of her bright, wanton lord, the Sun. She'll weep 
When he puts on his crimson robes to-night. 
And leaves her in the twilight to her grief; 
But yet to-morrow she as sweetly will 
Smile on him as if he had ne'er been false. 
'Tis that pale sufferer, the maiden Moon, 
Forever pining with her hopeless love, 
And sadly following close upon his heels. 
Who whispers patience to her, till that she, 



THE VOTARY. 35 

Fond e'en to doting, smiles the truant back 
When he returns to-morrow, and o'erlooks 
His last night's frailty." 

Her indignant eyes 
Flashed fire, and in an instant rang the sharp 
Report of her reply from quick curled lips. 
"Poor fool!" 

He bent a steadfast gaze on her, 
And 'neath that look, as bounds an eager steed 
Who feels his rider's lash, the fiery blood 
Leapt to her cheek and dashed across her face. 

They reached the sanctuary and went in. 

Like soothing balsam on his sore, racked brain 

The high words of the morning service fell. 

The inspiration of the morning, too ! 

When all the world around was reeking in 

Its business and its pleasures, here, within 

This solemn temple of Most High, went up. 

In worship, penitential prayers sublime. 

Which the church shares with all who will partake. 

The lady's father joined them in the throng. 

" A wonder and a mystery," said he, 

" What drew you from your thoughts and books ; was it 

The morning smile of the fair siren May ? 

Know you what spell has charmed our student out ? " 

He turned, with an arch smile, to Adelaide. 

" You were the enchantress, daughter, I divine, 

And potent are your spells. So, Rudiger, 

The spring has thawed that heart of ice, then, that 



36 THE VOTARY. 

It wakes to verdure 'neath two sunny eyes ! " 

Witli gracious smile he spoke, — and Eudiger 

Looked up in ill-concealed astonishment. 

Ha ! could it be ! The very thought smote on . 

His heart as if a reeling blow were dealt, 

That he, the statesman there, would have him woo 

His child, her at whose haughty feet there knelt 

So many high in place, in bootless suit ! 

Seemed he to them so worth possessing ; was 

His progress, then, so marked, and his success 

So plain as to command such preference ! 

This thought drove to his heart a shock of joy, 

But soon dismissed as a foul wrong to her 

In whose sweet keeping he had left his faith ; 

He struck it from him. 

" See," the statesman said, 
" Yon slight, dark youth is the new poet who 
Doth sway the fickle fancy of the world." 
" Is it," said Eudiger, " that fragile youth 
With the pale, swarthy face and lustrous eyes, — 
Eyes set ablaze by burning thoughts within ? 
A rich-dowered soul, and laden with fine thoughts 
As thick as skies with stars. Whene'er I hold 
Within my hand that book, in which he gave 
A glimpse of his great soul unto men's eyes, 
I feel it throb and pant with passion and 
With life ; my own heart beats in unison." 

" He sings sweet songs," said Adelaide, " there's one, 
A tale of passion, of a maid who loved 



THE VOTARY. 87 

A youth who knew it not, but, too, himself 

Loved her with wild idolatry. At night 

Both lay awake and for each other longed 

With feverish cheeks and pulse, — or, their poor lips 

Blanched by despair, they lay in pining pain ; 

And, all the time, both quite unconscious that 

The love was theirs for which they would have died. 

So, daring not unfold her heart, she paled 

And died, and with her last breath sent to him 

A message laying her occult love bare : 

Which, when he heard, so fired his desperate soul 

He let it out to follow her and tell 

Of his own passion : 'tis a stirring rhyme." 

" He sings the tale of love in strains so sweet 
As steal the hearts of gentle maids away. 
He has bewitched you by his minstrelsy," 
Her father interposed, with mischief in 
His laughing eyes, and half mock-earnest voice ; 
And he tapped playfully the glowing cheek 
Which crimsoned deeply 'neath the covert jest. 

" The poet is," said E-udiger, with warmth, 

" A soul inspired, who to the listening world 

Sings great truths in divinest melody." 

" Or rather," said the lady, " he is one 

Who telleth in the sweetest verse of one 

Great truth in all its variable forms." 

" His business, then, is all with love ? " he asked. 



38 THE VOTARY. 

'^ It is liis sole, transcendent, glorious theme. 
For love, metliinks, is tlie great truth which rules 
The Universe ; first in its grosser forms 
Of human passion, — no mean theme itself, — 
Uj) to its higher phases. Being, God. 
. 'Tis the primeval truth ; with it the world 
Began, with it shall end. Eternity 
But ushers man into its higher spheres.'' 

" The singing race should laureate thee for 

Thy sweet defence of their vocation. Are 

Not poets like Athenian lampadists. 

Who, bearing lighted torches, run a race ? 

He wins who brings a burning torch to goal. 

So, in the poet's emulation, he 

Whose genius burns with unquenched splendor to 

The end, whose fire of soul pales not before 

The rapid motion, is a conqueror, 

And wins a prize, a garland from Fame's hand. 

Now he, methinks, of whom we just now spoke. 

Comes in a winner with a blazing torch, — 

That wondrous book with its great panting heart, 

Like a full cup of stars of which you quaff 

And never drain." 

" Ah ! yes," said Adelaide, 
^* And every star you drink burns in the heart 
With never deadening fire." 

" You drink the stars, 
And from a cup ! Nay, then, hold, spirits, straight ; 
Her father interposed, " By Bacchus ! I 



THE VOTARY. 39 

Own to a grosser nature than is yours. 
Your starry beverage I covet not. 
I am of less ethereal mould. Yours is, 
I knowj a flashing draught, but give to me 
A cup that no more sparkles than red wine, 
And you may share between you all the stars. 
I love the stars, but love them in their spheres ; 
'Twould sully them to handle them so much." 

" We shall not tarnish them," said Adelaide, 
" Nor ever scorch our hands by plucking them ; 
But in our dreams at night a little sprite 
Comes bearing them in his candescent arms. 
And takes them back to their own spheres at dawn." 

^^ Rest the debate," the statesman said, " for see 
Here are our gates ! Come thou with us within. 
Star-drinker, and compare the sparkle of 
Our ruby wine with thy libation of 
Cold stars ; thou'lt find 'twill warm the heart far more." 

They sat in a luxurious library 

Lined with rich stores of books, and grand with busts 

Of those books' makers ; busts of marble, yet 

The stone will crumble ere their pages die. 

There was no lack of red wine, flashing in 

Clear crystal goblets, whose swift glow doth urge 

The tongue of genius into a fine blaze. 

Calls up the red flush to the brow, inflames 

The lips with words of burning eloquence. 

And gilds the drinker's face with godlike sheen. 



40 THE VOTARY. 

He with his host talked on high themes of state, 

His suhject in fine thoughts bedecking as 

In costly robes, to suit its dignity. 

The lady sat with folded hands, and bent 

Her head in mute attention while they talked. 

Hers was that splendid beauty that surmounts 

All criticism, but no frigid, still 

Perfectitude asleep in classic calm. 

Stately she was and statuesque, but with 

A woman's ardor warming all her mien ; 

Loving and lovable as beautiful. 

Soon their discourse dropped off from politics. 
And Adelaide took up the thread. 

" Dost thou 
Recall one story of that poet whom 
We saw at church ? 'Tis of the daughter of 
An ancient house, heir to a fearful curse ; 
Whose every scion, till a certain age, 
Must be subjected to the damned charms 
Of a vile demon, who assumed fair shapes 
To fascinate, and lure to dreadful death." 

" Ay ! lady ; and the verse unfolds how that 
If once the victim signed a parchment, which 
The fiend possessed, the devilish spell prevailed ; 
But if he reached the age and had not signed, 
He from temptation thenceforth was exempt. 
Many had fallen 'neath the spirit's arts. 
For he was subtle to assume disguise 



THE VOTARY. 41 

That lulled suspicion, — and tlie castle had 
From heir to heir descended, till at last 
The last of all the line possessed it now." 

" Here is the volume, pray recite the rhyme. 
Lend me your voice with poesy to charm 
This slowly creeping noon, — tlieir witchcraft is 
More magical than any pastime else 
With which to exorcise its languidness,^ 
And scare its ennui.'' 

Passing him the book 
She pledged him richly in her cup, but sweetlier in 
The liquid richness of her dreamy eyes. 
The poet's legend o'er his burning lip 
Poured musically, as a singing stream 
Purls o'er a moss-grown stone in summer glade. 

The tale was touching ; for the poet told, 

In the sweet flow of his most witching rhyme, 

How by her race's devilish enemy, 

In the disguise of a bold, gallant knight. 

The maid was wooed and won ; and nearly had 

Been won to sign the fatal parchment, when 

Her watchful, grizzled sire detected the 

Poul spirit 'neath his brave disguise, and snatched 

The perilled maiden from her threatened fate. 

But she was crazed by the unmasking of 

Him whom she had entrusted with her heart. 

And thenceforth evermore went wandering through 

The thick wood which had been their wonted tryst, 
4* 



42 THE VOTARY. 

Calling upon her lover-knight by name^ 

And weeping wildly when he still came not ; 

While from the forest's black and secret depths 

The foul fiend's voice, in devilish taunting, mocked 

The pleading, piteous invocations of 

The sweet, distracted maid in her fond search. 

" Enough ! enough ; no more of the sad tale ! " . 
Cried Adelaide. ^' Love blighted her, poor soul I 
So tightly clung her heart about its god 
The falling image stunned the cleaving thing. 
They are not wise, these lovers, so to dote, 
For perjury, deceit are rife, — they're mad 
To jeopardize their all, who see so oft 
That demons lurk beneath the fairest mask. 
I have seen poor infatuate creatures so 
Enthralled by the dominion of love's yoke, 
As to dote on more madly still, when to 
Their hearts that one's base falsehood is revealed 
To whom they have surrendered being — all. 
Shame on them ! They deserve no pity in 
Whose hearts one shade of feeling lingers for 
The wretch who has outraged love's sacred vows. 
I do remember me a fair, fond wife, 
Whose chaste breast he, who swayed its every thrill, 
Forsook for the seductive bosom of 
A shameless Circe, whose voluptuous spells 
Diverted his light love from the fair channel of 
Her own, as clear and beautiful as the 
* Sweet silver spring, born amid sylvan shades. • 



THE VOTARY. 43 

My heart bled for the true wife's deadly wrong, 
Went with her, all alert, to her revenge. 
Suggesting consolation and resolve ; 
But when, poor doting fool, her direful work 
Of retribution half complete, she paused 
Relenting and forgiving, I rebelled. 
Indignant, Against her weak and failing heart. 
I blushed for her that woman ever should 
Demean herself to cringe 'neath man's deceit.'' 

" A base-born passion, bastard counterfeit 

Of love, may breed revenge," said E-udiger ; 

" Wronged love knows indignation and despair, 

But not retaliation, — as sweet herbs 

Whose leaves crushed hard by cruel fingers yield 

A stronger fragrance, but, if they are foul, 

A more revolting stench." 

" Such is your creed. 
A very fine faith, a choice theory. 
Know that the falsest tenets fairest hold 
Till trial proves their flaw. The soul is not 
At best, ennobled by the purest love, 
So clear but that a taint of passion and 
A fallen nature's weakness cling to it. 
Scorn is the refuge of insulted hearts, 
And vengeance is a human passion. Hate 
Will sprout spontaneous forth from injury." 

" These are the words of the untried ; as boys 
Are heroes to fight ogres all day long, 



44 THE VOTARY. 

But shake for fear of tliem in bed at night. 
With love comes tenderness to hardest hearts ; 
And, though the love he killed, the tenderness 
Survives, and puts to rout all imps of hate 
The devil can despatch." 

He rose to go. 
" Adieu ! then ; but, sir student, I enjoin 
Return not now forever to those tomes. 
You are more human for this brief release. 
Kepeat the dose, we do prescribe, and let 
The outer world sometimes get glimpse of you." 

" Galena, thanks, — the draught intoxicates. 
He who once quenches thirst at a sweet spring 
To drink of its blest waters oft returns. 
Adieu, fair spirit of the Spring ! " 

A friend. 
Known well and loved of Rudiger, joined him, 
Who clapt him on the shoulder boisterously, 
And, jesting in youth's idle fashion, said : 
" So, Rudiger, you are a favored knight, — 
The father gracious, and the daughter not 
Unkind, I will be bound. Why, man alive, 
Without their pomp or pains you distance all 
The swarm of suitors buzzing vainly round. 
Though haughtier than Jove's queen, she is no jilt. 
You will not lack advancement, Rudiger. 
Statesmen control the offices^ you know. 
You're bound to mount, would mount alone, 'tis true ; 
And yet a man in power may. aid you, eh ? " 



THE VOTARY. " 45 

His listener started, and a whirl of thoughts 
Spun madly through his scared and startled brain. 
The world assigned him, then, to Adelaide, 
And she, superb in beauty, — but, pshaw ! 
It booted not, the world's vain, vague surmise. 
It bound him not, — he recked its babble naught. 
And, reasoning thus, he shut his conscience out 5 
Which proved the presence of a demon thought 
That skulked in the dark corners of his soul. 



Late one night he sat 
With pallid brow, and contemplative eyes 
For study too thought-thick. 

From belfries dark 
Black midnight groaned, with hoarse and hollow voice, 
Unto the world the burial of a day. 
He shuddered at the awful, ghostly voice ; 
And midnight's weird, unutterable thoughts 
Thronged in his brain and wanton riot ran. 
Mad phantasies, amazing secrets of 
The brain, and dark, unearthly mysteries, 
In some strange recess of the being hatch'ed, 
In chaos of confusion crowded on 
His soul, appalled, crazed almost by its own 
Monstrous creation and wild labyrinth. 
He sat pale, with his soul's scare in his eyes, 
Until that soul grew used unto itself 
And its own wondrous immortality. 
Which midnight solitude had made it feel. 



46 THE VOTARY. 

Then giant Keason, baffled for a time, 
Waved his magician wand sublimely o'er 
The spectre horde and exorcised them all ; 
And his soul grappled sternly with its sense, 
Its speechless sense, of Immortality, — 
And thus his thoughts ran : 

" In Eternity 
How shall I stand ! He whose capacity 
Of soul is greatest hath the loftiest place. 
The highest joy can know, is closest to 
The essence of the Deity, can drink 
The deepest draught of Immortality, 
And the supernal sun of Eternity 
Shines fullest in upon his being's core. 
The centre of the universe is mind, 
Which men call Intellect, — and that is God, — 
Each soul an efflux from that Spirit, as 
Each ra}'- of light an emanation from 
The Sun, — an individuality, — 
But yet not separate from the Primal Life, 
A part of it, though still distinct itself. 
And as that emanation dwindles down 
From its original proportions, so 
The Life flows back insensibly unto 
Its source in God, — who drinks it up again. 
But God attaches to each single soul 
A consciousness which never can be lost j 
And this, when it hath lost its all divine. 
Lives on forever yet, — and this men call 
The conscience. This the creed which I accept 



THE VOTARY. 

And find no better. Now, the highest aim 

Of man should be to keep this spark of Grod 

From diminution ; rather, let him add, 

By hardest exercise and service, to 

Its vigor, till it draw more glory from 

The Supreme treasury. It follows, then. 

That they, 'mong men who have obscurely lived, 

Who have not even shone conspicuous 

On earth's dark background, must show pale, indeed, 

In th' effulgent glory of Eternity. 

Great souls it is that thirst for fame on earth. 

Such win it here, and leave their names imprint 

In golden brand indelible on Time, 

For all the ages after them to read ; 

While the immediate Court of Deity 

They enter, bright in glory's shining robes. 

'*Fame is the guerdon for which I contend. 
My grappling soul is earnest in the work, 
And boldly sues the glances of Fame's eyes. 
My soul, last night, was filled with her in sleep. 
In dreams I steered my brittle bark across 
A tideless ocean, whose quiescent breast, 
Waveless and shoreless, slept in stagnant calm. 
O'er the far waters, which, a boundless waste, 
Swept far beyond the limits of my sight, 
Reigned such repose, chaotic stillness, that 
My heart's quick beat grew slow in sympathy. 
Then 'twas, alone, launched on a desert sea. 
Beneath, the fathomless depth of silence, all 



50 THE VOTARY. 

True, Nature is man's mighty creditor, 
And he must promptly satisfy her claims, 
But need not heap such lavish interest 
As fades the principal into a doit. 
He feasts the flesh, but fasts the intellect ; 
The body gluts, but famishes the brain ; 
Yet, of great Pompey's clay, these carcasses 
May be compact, or Alexander's dust. 

" 'Tis the same earth that 'twas in Caesar's day ; 

The mighty seas still in their basins toil 

Where they retreated, or were driven back, 

In the primeval contest waged between 

The elements for the supremacy ; 

And the fierce fires, as in a prison house, 

In the earth's centre rage, wherein they were 

Hurled in the dreadful conflict. Not a grain 

Has earth gained more, nor atom lost, in Time, 

But still through space her customed gyre she wheels 

As when the Sun was young, and had not seen 

Her fair face blighted by man's ravages ; 

When white and shining, as a dew-drop fair. 

She hung divinely beautiful in air. 

" And has the human soul in all these years 

Been shrivelling into such a stunted dwarf. 

Willing and glad to grovel in the dust, 

And grope on blindly in earth's noisome scum ? 

Was't not more glorious in those olden days 

To live ? What says that ^rand and reverend «eer, 



THE VOTARY. 61 

Around whose awful and mysterious head 
The gloom and clouds of Antiquity collect ; 
But on whose front sits Eevelation throned, 
Lights the dim vista with supernal eyes, 
And makes all clear that else were dark as death ! 
What sayst thou, History ? The prophetess 
Points through the mist of ages to the page 
Of her vast, time-stained record, solemnly, — 
The great, who in all ages have led men. 
Intrepid chiefs in council and in field — 
Children of genius, whatsoever patlis 
Of glory inspiration lead them through. 
Involuntarily I raise my eyes. 
And see them blazing in that hook of Fame, 
The teeming vault o'erhead, whence Antony 
Hath faded out, and in his place a star, 
Far-rending apace with its refulgent ray. 
Is entered there. 

Oh ! Child of Glory ! Thou, 
Whose royal shade stalks gloomily along. 
Heading the shadowy ranks now trooping by 
In the night's gloom, in that undaunted mien 
Of thine and thine Old Guard, — whose warlilve ghosts 
Have rallied round their Emperor's spectre, and. 
As erst to bloody, earthly battle-fields, 
March silent by with noiseless, spectral tread, — 
I read the lesson of thy wondrous life. 
Teach thou my tottering soul, great conqueror, 
The strength of will and iron purpose that 
Bore thee straight on to Fame, untempted by 



48 THE VOTARY. 

Around, o'erliead, the occluded arch of heaven, 

My awe-struck spirit, sad and conscious, felt 

Its being on this wilderness of wave. 

Pale Frenzy clutched at me with hungry glare ; 

I, desperate, shook the greedy demon off. 

Aimless and lone, I cast the oar adrift ; 

My bark stood still ; when, through the empty void, 

All dim, and indistinct, and shadowy. 

An aerial colonnade I seemed to see. 

The hazy outlines first I deemed the wild 

Creations of my brain, that mocked my eyes ; 

But slowly, as I gazed, the mist uprose, 

Revealing to my vision plainly where. 

Close on the water's edge, on a fair isle, 

A triple range of columns airily. 

Of alabaster gleam and brightness, rose, 

T' support the golden dome above on their 

Wrought capitals of exquisite device. 

The narrow beach shone with the glistering light 

Of pebbles of all hues, and pearly shells, 

Argent and gold, and coral branches, that 

Glowed redly in the golden-lustred sand. 

With eager hands I paddled round my bark. 

On every side the airy structure stretched 

Down to the shallow beach's burnished marge, 

Stupendous and translucent. Marble stairs. 

Which seemed to come up from the ocean's depths, 

Led to a bronze door fast with monstrous bolts. 

An armed sentinel paced before this door. 

I hailed him, with, ' Is this Fame's temple, tell ? ' 



THE VOTARY. 49 

He answered, ' Aj^, and this earth's outer gate/ 

My boat now grazed the marble stairs, — I leapt, 

With frantic joy, upon the slippery steps. 

And at the door rushed headlong, furious. 

Mung back, bruised, stunned, half blinded, I beheld 

My heart burned to a cinder in my breast. 

The anguish woke me. What forebodes this dream ? " 

He, breathless, paused ; and a convulsion strong 

Griped his pale face and bleared his darkling eyes 

As if a blast of fire had swept them o'er. 



Two hours past midnight, Rudiger stood at 
His casement, gazing out upon the town. 
All there was still ; and, muttering, he spoke : 

" They sleep, those slothful images of clay, 

And waste the soul's best aspirations and 

Its true immortal powers in sleep indulged 

Beyond the body's need. So, stewing in 

Their carnal, base, and sensual appetites, 

They do defile, or lose, the holy night. 

With all its golden opportunity 

For studious thought, or well-rewarding toil. 

The soul, enslaved by coarsest passions, doth 

In vain against such tyrants struggle, as 

The raving wretch, poisoned with pestilence. 

And with the death-damp pale and weak, contends 

With the foul plague which, in its deadly hug, 

Fast binds him down on the loathed bed of death. 
5 



52 THE VOTARY. 

Aught short of thy great guerdoiij France's throne. 

Heart ! down to rest ! Peace, straggler, I am firm ! 

Resolve is in my soul and cannot yield. 

Let me not think, but instant hurry on 

To that safe point whence turning there is none. 

Till planted there irrevocably, I 

Am never safe from this weak, wistful heart, 

Whose pleading voice action alone can drown." 

His whole frame quivered, and his pallid face, 

With fearful throes convulsed, he upturned to 

The shining heavens. There stood the watchful star ; 

It seemed to throb and pant, as if in pain, 

And shed its tremulous rays like showers of tears. 

He cowered beneath its warning aspect, and 

A stern, dark shadow lowered o'er his brow. 

The star in sadness shrank behind a cloud ; 

And round a sleeping maiden far away 

The nightly guardians wound their soothing arms, 

And smoothed with their bright hands the troubled brow, 

Which anguished dreams had spread with agony. 



THE VOTAKY. 53 



III. 



The festal glee waxed high. Around the board, 
Reflecting m its polished face the glow 
Of the rich juice of splendent, sanguine dye, 
Were gathered jocund men, whose hearts elate 
Were laden full and running o'er with mirth. 
Flushed, palmy revelry sat in every soul, 
And wove festoons of bright, ephemeral flowers ; 
And, conscious of her transient empire, the 
Enchantress heaped the lavish coronals high, 
A.nd brimmed the soul with short-lived ecstasy. 
Light-footed Wit its flashing circle glanced. 
And perched upon the goblets' crystal brim. 
And fringed the lips with brilliancy, the while 
It spiced the wine to finer flavor yet, — 
And reeled the jest its giddy dance around. 

High at the board, where thickest was the glee, 

Sat Kudiger, the wildest reveller. 

The redolent Muscadine was in his brain, 

His very soul steeped in its maddening fumes, 

4* 



54 THE VOTARY. 

While the hot flood of mirth, that swelled his hreast, 

He welcomed in to drown remorseful thought. 

A mad, wild pride, and a fierce relish of 

The incense of man's adulation, flamed 

From his deliriously glancing eyes. 

One sparkling stream of furious, dashing wit 

Poured from his lips, which men applauded loud, 

Amazed by, but admiring, the strange show. 

Now, through the hall, rang a gay bacchanal's song. 

" Let amber wine 
In tankard shine, 
Eich floods of light o'er all be poured; 
Por wine and light 
Make day of night. 
When young hearts gird the festive board. 
Chorus : Why, then, fill up 
The jovial cup 
And quaff it off to beauty's eyes, — 
For love and wine. 
When they combine. 
Of this dull earth make Paradise. 

^^ In festal hour 
Love's fairest flower 
The chalice crowns, and scents the wine ; 
Each bud bends low 
To kiss the glow 
Of the fire-nectar of the vine, 
Chorus : Why, then, fill up, etc. 



THE VOTARY. 55 

" He is a churl 

Who, to the girl 
His heart enthrones, will not imbibe. 

Then spill the wine 

On beauty^s shrine, 
And honor to them both ascribe. 

Chorus : Why, then fill up, etc." 

Now shouted one, " Unto his lady each 

A bumper pour ! '- And whispered he who sat 

By E-udiger, his closet friend, " Begin, 

As fit, with hers, thy dainty Adelaide's ! " 

He filled his flagon quickly, to comply. 

But, ere his lips could form the name, a star. 

Through the wide casement shining, caught his eye. 

It was the same that he had singled out 

For beacon to Sybilla of his faith ; 

And now it rose before him in this hour 

Of direst peril to his tempted troth, 

A warning sentry, stationed by himself. 

His stiff, erect form, glaring, glassy eyes. 

White, rigid face and bloodless, parted lips, — 

The fiery wine-cup raised in his fierce clutch, — 

Appalled them all. A minute's silence reigned, 

'Till his astounded friend put out his hand ; 

The touch alarmed his vagrant senses home, 

But still his lips paled deeper as they formed 

The name of Adelaide, and in one breath 

He drained the brimming goblet in his hand ; 

And then he dashed off with a mocking laugh 



56 



THE VOTARY. 



Into a storm of incoherent words. 
No one could understand the scene, and soon 
The reign of mirth dispelled its memory. 
When not an eye observed, with nervous hand 
He hastily thrust the crimson curtain o'er 
The casement, and shut out all sight of sky. 

Midnight was old ere parted the gay group. 



A dainty place was Adelaide's boudoir. 

The draperies of the walls and windows were 

Pale azure with pink roses broidered o'er. 

The floor was India-matted, for it was 

Midsummer, thickly strewn with velvet rugs, 

Whose ground was soft cream-color, sprinkled with 

Blue violets and snowy asphodels. 

On ottomans, with linings of blue silk, 

Her books and her guitar lay carelessly. 

Fresh flowers in parian vases shed around 

Their dreamy fragrance. A fair face in oils 

Hung o'er a mantel, — in white marble carved 

Like to the sedgy margin of a brook, — 

Her early-dead Italian mother's face. 

With jetty hair and eyes, — dark, loving eyes, — 

And full of mournful tenderness, 'neath which 

The daughter knelt each morn and night in prayer, 

With holy reverence. A porcelain globe 

Poured from its argand-burner mellow light 

Upon a few rare statuettes, which were 

By folds of thin gauze softened, not obscured. 



THE VOTARY. 57 

Here Adelaide awaited E-udiger. 
Her head leaned on her arm, the lady sat 
Absorbed in a sweet, languid revery. 
Her cheek was warmly with vermilion flushed, — 
The flush of beauty's triumph from the ball. 
Upon her glossy tresses, and half-hid 
Amid the fleecy drapery of her robe. 
Were damask roses placed. Her arms were claspt 
With jewelled bracelets, and her sumptuous neck 
Girt by a shining necklace. Hither from 
- The halls of revel, hasted Eudiger, 
His beauty whetted to a keener edge 
By the excitement of the night, — each line 
Of his seductive and impassioned face 
Touched into splendid radiance. As he sank 
Upon a silken cushion at her feet. 
She seemed to thrill beneath his smile and touch, 
As a smooth lake stirred by her lover breeze. 

She placed a parchment in his hand, and spoke. 

" I know thy restless craving for a boon 

From thy cold mistress, Fame, who chary is 

Of granting to her lovers any suit. 

Thj'" loyalty and zeal, sir, do deserve 

More gracious treatment from the haughty dame ; 

And so I've begged this of her hoarded stores. 

'Tis thine. Ah ! but I do believe I am 

As much a statesman as the best of you, 

I can discern who will grace offices. 

My father's daughter gifts thee with the seal." 



58 THE VOTARY. 

A glad thought blazed, like a far-piercing star, 

In either eye, as he perused the page. 

It was commission to a coveted 

Appointment, after which he had aspired. 

He seized her hand, and branded there a kiss. 

Her red lips trembled, and her downcast eyes 

Were veiled by their thick lashes, but he knew 

Those orbs were brimmed with passion's rising flood 

That dared not burst its confines, chafing 'neath 

Its trembling barrier, those rosy lids. 

Her throbbing hand lay revelling in his. 

The ^^^that all her being its ^^od Xm^i^ 

To deluge threatened, to its fountain back 

She forced, and sealed it with her woman's pride. 

He was not niggard of his soul's delight, 

But told his gratitude with tireless zeal ; 

And wistful love might easily mistake 

His ardor for its coveted response. 

^' Methinks I am," he said, with look around, 

^* At Juno's very throne ; or else it is 

That younger goddess, Elora, who reigns here. 

Thine, lady, is the royal court of flowers ! 

Teach me their language. I would fain be skilled 

In their sweet lore to hold commune with them.'' 

" What do they teach ? Full many a lesson, sir. 
Humility and patience ; — for though man 
Crush their frail forms beneath his heavy tread. 
From their bowed heads still sweeter perfumes rise, - 



THE VOTARY. 59 

Their only murmur is tlieir fragrance. Thus 

They are like holy martyrs from whose lips, 

E'en at the stake, came only blessed prayers. 

This is their patience. Their humility 

They show by blooming all unsought along 

The dusty road-side, in the beggar's path, 

Though cared by queens and nourished daintily 

In royal gardens. Then they teach 

Their grandest precept when they fade ; 

For, though their fragile petals wither, and their stalks 

Succumb to autumn's cruel, nipping frosts, 

^Tis but destruction's semblance, for the germ 

Still lives to be regenerate in spring. 

It is an adumbration of man's soul. 

Yearly repeated by the lovely race." 

'^ The flowers, though artless, lady, yet are wise. 
The innocent pleaders have secured a voice 
To urge their cause, that shall bewitch all ears. 
I once possessed a friend who loved the flowers 
As a warm girl, nor thought it any stain 
Upon his manhood that he tended them." 

" Ah ! he, meseems, knew what it is to lie 
Out in the woods all day upon the moss, 
Beneath a tangled shade, where arching boughs 
Are bent by the wild grape-vine's festoon and 
The feathery clematis ; knew how sweet 
The sympathy of flowers in idle hours, 
How they steal in on summer solitude. 
And hallow contemplation's solemn mood. 



GO THE VOTARY. 

But, sir, you?; friend ? For, if I heard aright, 
The flowers he loved now watch upon his grave. 
Sadly you spoke, and in the past." 

" I did. 
This sphere holds but his clay and memory now. 
Few truly knew him, and those loved him well. 
The world calls him a dead enthusiast, 
Who fused his life in visionary schemes ; 
And a cold sneer distorts its hateful face 
When it names him, or any soul akin. 
Had he but willed, he might have writ his name 
On Time in characters so blazing as 
Would have struck blind the world's envious eyes." 

" He was such, and yet wielded not his powers ? 
Died he so young, or failed, by love enthralled ? " 

" Before his prime he fell ; yet not so young 
But that some years of action had been his. 
Had he so listed. Lady, he was one 
Cast out of place upon this barren age. 
Thus would he speak to me with quivering lips, 
And eyes half bursting with indignant fire, 
Like sun-struck dew-drops with quick flashing rays ; 
' Whene'er a soul, fresh from the hand of God, 
On which the snowy flakes of purity 
Rest thick, unmelted ; yearning after love. 
Which pants for generous intercourse with man. 
Unselfish sympathy, and perfect truth ; 
Whene'er a soul, burdened with such high hopes 



THE VOTARY. 61 

And aspirations, shrinks away from men, 

Abhorring guilty pleasures, sensual lusts, 

And brutal passions, they will sneer, and flout. 

And fling at him their ribald jests and scoffs. 

And brand him with some coarse, injurious name. 

Whenever such a soul lifts up its voice, 

And cannot be induced by aught to cede 

Its innocence or honor to the world, 

Living in holy visions of a state 

Where sin-enslaved humanity may be 

Preed from its sin-forged chains, and rise into 

Its pristine perfectness and uprightness ; 

Men call it visionary, weak or crazed, 

Romantic, spiritual, and laugh to scorn 

Its pure and holy aspirations. 

Such 
A spirit, then, must sicken and despair. 
And wither in earth's uncongenial air. 
'Neath Spezia's waters such a spirit sank.' 
Then in remonstrance would he turn to me. 
* You, Eudiger, e'en you, my well-loved friendj 
You smile in unbelief ; not at these views, — 
" It is impracticable," is your plea. 
" If it could be," you say, " 'twere well the world 
Became the seat of universal love 
And peace and holiness, — the earth entire 
Must first pass through the Judgment flames, as throi. gli 
A furnace, e'er it come out cleansed and fair, 
A worthy vessel for abiding love." 
This cold deliberate reasoning killeth me. 



62 THE VOTARY. 

Why may not man with one great struggle plunge 

Into the pool which Mercy stirreth, and 

Be healed of his putrescent leprosy ! ' 

Thus, lady, would he plead for hours with nie." 

" But, could you not/' said Adelaide, " pluck oif 
The cloud that rested on his reason so ? 
It would have heen a most sweet labor to 
Have rescued, such a nature from despair." 

" 'Twas my ambition. I untiring strove ; 
But though he listened meekly to me, I 
Might just as soon have rent the heavens as 
Have pierced his soul with one ray of my faith, 
That all things are in God's great wisdom for 
Some final good which man cannot foresee. 
'Tis hard for any to acquire such faith. 
This most perplexing of God's mysteries, 
How sin hath grown so giant-like in the 
Great universe where He doth reign supreme. 
Indeed, it seemed almost a sacrilege 
To strive to argue his pure soul out of 
Its holy faith, in which he stood so firm. 
He stood upon a lofty capital. 
As 'twere, apart from men, — in solitude, — 
Nor stood he there in pride, but lowly, with 
His head bowed down in sweet humility." 

" And how," she asked, " then, do you construe such 
A riddle of humanity as this ? " 



THE VOTAKY. 63 

" Perchance, it was God's purpose to display 

To evil man a holy human soul 

Clothed in its pristine purity, e'en such 

As the first man's, ere sin had rooted from 

Its virgin soil its native innocence ; 

That we might measure fairly the extent 

Of the world's lapse in sin, in sin so foul 

That pure souls wither in its deadly air 

As in a pestilent miasm, and faint 

And perish in its noisome atmosphere. 

A fearful warning 'twere, did man reflect." 

^' Did the cold blasts and pestilential winds 
Of the world's scornful mocking, howling round 
His lonely pillow with dry withering sweep. 
Torment him sorely till he sank o'ercome ; 
Or, as in time of drought, plants die for lack 
Of rain, died he for dearth of sympathy ? " 

" He died as he had lived, poor lonely one ! 

At midnight, in a fierce, terrific storm, 

His life of pain, in pain still, slowly ebbed. 

It seemed as if the world, which e'er had been 

Cheerless and hard to him, had striven to wear 

Its dreariest look to worry his last hours. 

Rains beat, and mocking winds howled o'er liis liead. 

'Midst all, sad smiling, gentle, calm, he lay ; 

His last word, tender, mournfulest regret 

For all the sin-born miseries of men. 

Then in the loud shriek of a cruel blast 

His sick soul fled all weary from its clay." 



f)4 THE VOTARY. 

" ^Tis pitiful, — 'tis woful. If his life 

Should teach this lesson you ascribe to it, 

He with some power should have been gifted to 

Enforce the moral upon man, whereas 

He was reviled and flouted both in life 

And death." 

" Ah ! lady, there should need no sign 
More sure than the plain contrast of his life 
With the immedicable murrain of 
A worldling's worthless, execrable days. 
He was but one of myriad signs akin. 
As bright and as conspicuous as the stars." 
His face was earnest with his earnest theme. 
A thoughtful pause, and he began again : — 

" See yon light, fleecy clouds chase through the sky 

As faint dim visions through a maiden's dreams, — 

And the stars trembling like the soul-lit eyes 

Of the fair shapes that flutter through her sleep. 

Didst ever, lady, think how heroes' names. 

Though shining through the mist of centuries, — 

Which throes of nations, toppling thrones, and all 

Th' events of history obscure and cloud, — 

Are still as bright as if but yesterday 

Their glorious deeds had made the world stand still ? 

Ah ! Fame thou art a faithful -mistress yet ! 

Mad words and passionate breath, fair lady, may, 

Stormily beating on the yielding heart 

Of a warm maiden, win their entrance there. 

The world-woo'd lady. Fame, hath not a heart 



THE VOTARY. 05 

That opens to an idle lover's vows. 
He who would win regard from her high eyes 
Must send as messengers heroic deeds, 
Or mighty mind achievements ; unto such, 
Whose knock shall jar the portals of her heart, 
She'll hark, and open wide her brazen gates. 
I woo Fame with th' immortal part of me. 
All else but Fame may be mislaid by Time." 

" Nay, Love outrivals Fame. Love is fur more 
The soul's capacity. How much you err ! 
What the earth would be with the flaming sun 
Blazing forever on from morn to morn, 
W^ithout the respite of the grateful night 
With its bland dulcet dews and softer moon, — 
Whose mildly ripening rays cool off the ground 
And freshen it to bear the sun's hot beams, — 
Would be ambitious man, despoiled of love. 
As, in such case, the soil would dry and crack. 
And arid dearth would calcine earth's green breast, 
So man would harden, and his soul's pure springs 
Dry up and leave a burnt and barren life. 
Without sweet love to water his hot heart." 

Another pause, and he began again : 

"List to the dial's chime. The golden hours 
Have flown on rapid wings, and they beliind. 
Eager to see the world, do crowd them on. 
6* 



C6 THE VOTARY. 

They're peevish ; for, intent on other things, 

If we regard them not, they swiftly speed, 

Enraged by our neglect. But if the mind 

Is idle and we dally with them, then 

They tarry gladly, loving our regard. 

They plague us with their fickle humors, and 

For airy flight their golden pinions plume. 

When we, in pleasure's arms, would keep them long ; 

But on what leaden wings they drag when pain 

Or sorrow make us wish to drive them fast ! 

" How rich the night ! how balmy is the air ! 
See how the glowworm's diamond sparks do shame 
Yon jewel's flash. Poor stones ! thus twice eclipsed ; 
First paled with envy, by their wearer's eyes." 

" You wrong them, sir; for when, a century hence. 
These eyes are quenched in dull and lustreless dust, 
They still will shine on in unfading light. 
See, their resentment blazes from their eyes ! " 

" Thou errest, lady ; for thou knowest that 
'Tis thy pure soul that shines out from thine eyes, 
And that will grow still brighter when the gems 
Are melted in the ruin of the world. 

"Eve's bridal night was such a one as this, 
Methinks, — balm-cool with rare and incensed air. 
The violet sky crowded with emulous stars, 
Each palpitating to outshine its mate ; 



THE VOTARY. 67 

The full-orbed moon, pale in her maiden pride ; 

The dusky shadow of the wooded hills 

Thrown o'er the tranquil plains, whose shining threads 

Of moon-struck streams and crystal-breasted lakes 

Decked their green beauty as with silver chains. 

From spice trees, oozing out in balsam dew, 

E-an fragrant gums ; and all the redolent flowers 

Poured out ambrosial odors, which the breeze 

Bore to the joyous pair's decked bridal bower. 

Then the young nightingale's melodious note 

To ringing hymeneal hymn attuned, 

While murmurous woods, and amorous-sighing shrubs, 

The chorus joined that hailed a race's birth ; 

And angels, wandering through the dewy groves, 

With spirit-music swelled the harmony." 

And so their converse ranged from theme to theme ; 
And so the hours slid on, those fair night hours. 
Till passion grew into their beings and 
Uprose upon their lips. 

In after time 
He never could recall how it befell. 
As it too surely did, that he was borne. 
In the strong grasp of passionate frenzy, to 
The treacherous troth he plighted there to her, 
The fatal falsehood of his drunken sense. 
But she was beautiful and fond, and he 
Was man ; and, oh ! the night was fair. 
The summer air was swooning with delight, 
And tremulous with passion every breath. 
Temptation came ; and he, oh, man ! was false ! 



68 THE VOTARY. 

" This breast Elysium — nectar this close kiss — 
Another — 'tis the gods' immortal food." 

" Sweet dreaminess." 

" Thine eyes I drink." 

" Thus ~ Thus." 

Oh ! fragrant kisses blown by summer winds ! 
Oh ! passionate kisses pressed by falsest lip ! 
Oh ! listening summer air, bear not to her, 
The true and trusting maiden, distant far. 
The faintest echo of those kisses false. 
Nor breathe the murmurings of his perjured lips ! 

'Twas o'er. Ambition tempted him in passion's guise j 
And he, ambition's slave, by passion fell. 



THE VOTARY. G9 



IV. 



As, on a fair, unclouded, sunny day, 

Full of sweet summer light and dreamy shade, -^ 

Which seems a golden doze of basking earth, — 

A sudden storm bursts black with hurricane ; 

So, o'er the summer morning of her heart. 

Broke on Sybilla the confirmed report 

That Rudiger had wedded Adelaide. 

They had not told her half before she paled 

And drooped ; there was no need to tell the rest. 

She sank resistless, nerveless, 'neath the blow. 

Her cold, white face looked like a lily bruised 

And broken by the cruel, pelting hail. 

There was no moan, no frenzy of despair ; 

But by the piteous wailing of her eyes. 

The dumb grief of that wild and startled stare, 

You only saw how deeply, surely had 

The blight struck to her heart. 

The light of joy 
Ne'er shone within those violet eyes again. 
Not that she never smiled again ; her lips 



70 THE VOTARY. 

Were slow to lose their native habitude ; 

But the sweet eyes were loyal to her grief. 

Woe christened them from thenceforth with her name. 

I low much she suffered never any knew ; 

But when she wandered far into the woods. 

And tarried long, till watchful love sought her, 

They found her laid on beds of leaves or moss, 

With fixed eyes peering on some glimpse of sky 

Through the dense foliage ; so motionless 

And jDallid, that they alwaj^ were aifright. 

And scarcely dared to stir her, lest a touch 

Should their worst fears confirm, and prove her dead. 

They found her often so by starlight, at 

Her casement, gazing on the midnight sky 

With set and rigid face. Whenever they 

Broke in upon her re very at these times. 

She wore a look of such strange beauty that 

They all were hushed and awed, and walked away 

With noiseless step, and a dim sense of pain. 

She often came home from long, lonely walks, 

With the calm rest and thoughtful eyes of one 

Who comes from Nature, soothed and comforted. 

Thus wore the summer. When the autumn came 
She weakened fast, and every day she blanched 
A shade more white, a shadow thinner shrank. 
And feebler waxed her little stock of strength ; 
Until one night in utter weariness 
She went to rest, and, when the morning came, 
Was powerless to rise, nor seemed to know 



THE VOTARY. 7) 

Tlie usual hour bad come. And there she lay 
Without a murmur, yielding like a flower, 
When crushed to death, her pure soul's balmiest, 
Most exquisite rare perfume round the wreck 
Of her decaying form ; still lovelier grew 
As Death approached, as does a summer day 
Each moment fairer wax in sunset's dyes 
Till it is lost in darkness. 

Through her eyes 
Her gentle spirit fled, and gave no sign. 
The watchers wist not when she passed away. 
Love's hands laid her all tenderly to rest 
And heaped the sod above her virgin form, 
Then sent to E-udiger, with breaking hearts, 
A letter she had written ere she died. 

It so befell that he was absent when 
The post arrived, and unto Adelaide 
By dangerous chance the letter was consigned. 
Thralled in the first intoxicating spell 
Of wedded love, in its fruition blest, — 
Which of a woman's whole existence is 
Her season of most deep enrapturement, — 
Was Adelaide ; her sun of happiness. 
High in its zenith, blazing on her heart 
With full bliss-quickening beams. 

There is a pang 
Deep hidden down in passion's secret core, 
A purple stain upon its rosy leaf, 
A sweet sting smiting on its rapture, which 



72 THE VOTARY. 

Seems a mysterious monitor, to warn 

That love engenders pain ; and Adelaide, 

Pondering and wondering oft o'er her delight, 

Had felt this prescience keen. Why was it that 

This formless trouhle stirred within her heart 

When she took up that letter ? To be sure 

'Twas superscribed in a small, feminine hand 

But that was scarcely cause for wonder. Pshaw ! 

She smiled at her own curiosity, 

An^ put the letter by. Mysterious fate. 

Or strange persistence of a woman's heart 

In what has touched it, — whatsoe'er it was, — 

The tantalizing wish returned to know 

What woman wrote to Rudiger ; she paused 

To think in wonder on the strangeness of 

Her eagerness ; but still it stronger grew, 

Till she, scarce conscious, held the letter up 

Before the light and took a stealthy peep. 

That which she saw there seemed to blind her, for 

She dashed her hand across her eyes as if 

To clear her vision ; for a curl of hair 

Was visible within the envelope. 

Caution or hesitation now she flung 

From her, and, with a short choke, broke the seal. 

What a fierce shudder shook her every inch 

As her shocked, frighted soul the import gained 

Of that astounding, fatal page. She sat 

A moment silent, with thick, muddied brain, 

As one who, conscious of a stunning blow. 

Yet knows not clearly how nor whence it came ; 



THE VOTARY. ^ 73 

Then rose unsteadily on tottering feet, 
And staggered like a lost, bewildered child, 
Confused, benighted, puzzled, in a maze. 
At length, the little white and fluttering sheet, — 
The puny weapon which had dealt the blow, — 
Falling from her clenched hands, attracted her. 
She pounced upon it, and, with set teeth, read 
Its every word from first unto the last. 

" You arq forgiven ! 

Though your crime has killed 
My body, it can never kill my love. 
She, whom you've wedded, loves you, I have heard. 
My soul's miraculous vision shows me, near 
To death, your perjured heart still mine, not hers ; 
Her wrong, by your false vows, is worse than mine ; 
Your base deceit to her more criminal 
Than your desertion of my broken heart. 
Protect her alway from a knowledge of 
The woful truth. Unto this trust be true ! 
This your atonement for your sin to me, 
Make her as happy as I might have been. 
Then, in the great hereafter when we meet 
And stand on fair and equal footing, then, 
Choose thou between her and 

SybiUa." 

With 
A sudden deluge the fell, damning truth 
Eushed over her, — she comprehended all. 
Her first emotion was an instinct which 



/4 THE VOTARY. 

Forbade her doubt a solitary word. 

She crouched upon the floor in agony. 

Her high-reared fane of love, a moment since 

Which towered into th' Elysian skies of bliss, 

Into a desolate, blackened ruin changed ! 

Her proud and passionate heart, given wholly up 

To love, had only love on which to lean ; 

That failing, it in utter ruin fell. 

It was as if a flood, risen in one night. 

Had swept away the sole supporting piers 

On which the arches of a stately bridge 

Were rested, and the early morning saw 

The wondrous fabric tumbled in the stream. 

But pride soon rose and to her rescue came, 

As come forth stalwart workmen to repair 

The devastation of the flood ; and with 

Its ready help she gathered up herself. 

And quitted the abasement of her grief. 

The streets of Carthage felt no haughtier feet, — 

When royal Dido, mad, forsaken queen, 

Fixed in dire purpose of most proud revenge. 

Turned to her palace from Eneas' ships, — 

Than spurned the floor of Adelaide's boudoir. 

Moaning, and muttering upbraiding sharp. 

She trod and trod its dreary bounds for hours. 

" Three days ere he return," — and must she wait 
Three mortal days before she may outpour 
On his false head her scathing storm of curse ! 
What misery she saw in store for her. 



THE VOTARY. 75 

" To live three days thus wronged and unavenged ; 
And through the wakeful watches of three nights 
'Twixt frantic passions to be tost and torn ! '' 
And thus the day waned, and came darkness on. 

In the dark watches of the sleepless night, 
There loomed afar to her, o'er the dark waste 
Of misery, a dim and feeble hope. 
How eagerly she clutched at the frail stay ! 
'^ Might not this letter with its story be 
The spiteful forgery of some cunning foe ; 
Or, if not that, might not this girl have been 
S^ome love-sick maid, who of a passion died 
Unknown to him, unanswered, he unblamed ? " 
No sooner was the thought born than she rose, 
Though weak and pale as from a fever couch, 
And all alone, without a single soul. 
Or friend or servant, set out on her way. 
To solve her doubts or her worst fears confirm. 

She found Sybilla's now deserted home, 

Spoke with her mourning friends and learned the whole ; 

And never by a quiver of her lip. 

Or moment's failing of the eye, gave sign 

To any of her own heart's deep concern 

In what they told her. In her they alone 

Saw a pale lady, beautiful but cold, 

Who listened to the sad recital of 

Sybilla's story, all without a tear, — 

And wondered at the strange composure of 



76 THE VOTARY. 

A lady who had come so far to ask 

For every circumstance, e'en most minute, 

Of the whole piteous romance. When all 

Was told, she thanked them very quietly, 

And with a voice so freezing and so harsh. 

They felt almost insulted at what seemed 

Her idle curiosity, and lack 

Of human sympathy, and turned from her 

With looks of cold mistrust and roused dislike. 

She noticed nothing of it all ; — her mind 

Intent upon the one ahsorhing theme, 

This confirmation of her direst fears. 

In after time, when they had learned her name. 

They better knew the piteous symptoms of 

A proud, insulted heart's reserved despair. 

She reached her home again before the night. 

More pale than when she set forth in the morn, 

But otherwise to prying eyes unchanged. 

It was a damp, gray, dreary day, in which 

The winds wailed dismally, as if in pain, 

Through the wet, dripping boughs, that weeved and moaned 

And swayed as if in reeling agony ; 

And o'er the sunless world the sombre clouds 

And the impenetrable rain-mists lowered : 

So down upon her hapless, wretched heart 

There settled the oppressive, woful truth, 

That a dark, stalking shadow had obscured 

The perfect bliss of her life's shadeless dream. 



THE VOTARY. 77 

That night she caught an hour's feverish sleep, 

From which she woke with wild, sharp mutterings. 

But still, 'mid all the chaos of her soul, 

Hope, the last fragment of a woman's heart, 

That stays when all the rest is rent away, 

Swept toward her one last remnant of the wreck, — 

A poor, forlorn hope for a rescue from 

Destruction. If hut Rudiger could prove 

That love untamahle for her had made him false 

Unto Syhilla, though that treachery 

Were hase and despicable, yet, she thought, 

What woman would not look with pity on 

The criminal who sins for love of her ! 

She did not promise to forgive him then. 

But 'twas a buoy for her sore, fainting soul 

Wrecked in this desert ocean of despair. 

The third day he returned. 

She heard his voice 
Eing in the hall below, — a tremor shook 
Her woman's heart, — she trembled fearfully, — 
Then, rising, with an effort mastered the 
First impulse of her nature, and called up 
Her pride and memory of her great wrong. 
A servant sought her, sent by E,udiger, — 
And gathering round her form her velvet shawl, 
Whose silken fringes swept the marble floor. 
Thrilling with inward passion, outwardly 
Pale, tearless, cold, clad in her pride and scorn. 
She went to meet him with majestic gait. 
7* 



78 THE VOTARY. 

In the oaken hall he stood, but altered much 

From the impassioned youth who gained the love 

Of sweet Sybilla but a few years since. 

His figure was erect, symmetrical. 

But early lacked its youthful roundness ; and 

His face, though not compressed, was harder than 

His years would warrant ; firmer were the lines 

About his mouth, and more compressed his lips. 

But in his eyes the change was wondrous ; for 

Their fervid gleams were quenched, and in their stead 

A luminous and steady flame burned like 

The white glare of the. streaming Northern Liglits. 

He met her thus, and bent his smiling eyes 

Gently upon her, and their glances crost 

Like swords ; upbraiding and unblenching hers. 

In gathering astonishment he spoke. 

" 'Twould seem that I were Gorgon-eyed, to turn 
The empress of my home thus into stone, — 
What does this cold, petrean figure bode ? 
Is this my Adelaide, my welcome this ? " 
His tones of music seemed to fire her blood, 
And loosed her tongue shut in a frozen vice. 

" Thy home ! Home is the heart's abode. 

Is this thy home ; hast thou that title here ? " 

His wonder grew to anger rapidly. 

" What mean these strange and most intemperate words, 



THE VOTARY. 79 



Which, you to utter, me to hear, degrade j 

What is this desperate, this dramatic mood ? " 

He scarce repressed an irritating sneer. 
'Twixt indignation all unutterable. 
And wrath ineffable, she stood transfixed. 
She, the accuser, into culprit changed ! 
He, the accused, assuming all the judge ! 
Was she so weak and utterly powerless ; 
Wronged near beyond expression, and by him ; 
He, guilty both of base deceit to her 
And fatal falsity unto another, yet 
Unmoved, superior even to her charge ? 
And, most exasperating thought of all, 
He, the transgressor, to rebuke her ! 

Here 
Endurance left her, and she fairly gasped, 
"Nay! then, Sybilla!" 

At the name he turned. 
Here was the key, then — Adelaide had heard. 
At last, how much he did not dare to think ;^ 
But, plainly, she was jealous. Well ! he had 
Foreseen this long, and was not unprepared 
For a hard storm. He braced himself against 
The tempest's fury, — 

"Well, then, what of her? 
But, tell me not ! It irks me so to hear 
A jealous girFs suspicions, gathered from 
Some idle gossip, that I'll leave you till 
You convalesce from this delirium. 
Adieu ! and — call the doctor ! " 



80 THE VOTARY. 

With no word 
She tost to him the letter, and sank down 
Upon a couch, and fastened on his face 
An unmoved look. 

He quickly turned aghast 
To see Sybilla's well known characters ; 
But still he nerved himself to read. He read ; 
His face turned ghastly with the hue of death. 
Scarce breathing, — while his icy, frozen glare 
Of horror, and despair, and hopelessness, 
Fell on her in its helpless anguish, — one 
Low moan rose upward from his strangling heart. 

She could not fail, with love's keen, sharpened eye 
Intent upon his features, to discern 
Each faint emotion that was shadowed there. 
How could she, then, mistake the accents of 
A wakened heart's despairing utterance ? 
In that one moment all the truth was shown. 
A swell of choking woe, exasperate rage, 
Of deadly indignation and despair, 
O'erwhelmed her, and beat back her rising curse. 
With one fierce glance at her from glazing eyes, 
He turned away his wild, distorted face. 
And rushed out desperate. 

The lady stood. 
And glared at where he disappeared, her wrath 
Checked midway in its fury by her grief — 
The fire of outraged love, insulted pride. 
The passion of roused female frenzy, hot. 



THE VOTARY. 81 

Scorching her breast and searing all her brain. 

A moment in this posture, after he 

Had left her, stood she ; then, as storm-tossed trees, 

After the tempest's rage is spent, begin 

To droop and languish, while hang listlessly 

Their strained, drenched branches, she 

No longer by his presence stirred, as by 

A goading gale, sank prostrate on the floor. 

She lay there till approaching footsteps warned 

Her chafing to be seen thus, and, though faint 

And weak, with haughty step she gained her door. 

There from all human eyes secreted, down 

She sank unbraced and shattered. 

Oh, God ! Now 
Thought chased thick, horrid phantoms through her brain. 
Where was her heart's resource, that iron pride 
She thought to find an all-sufficient stay 
On which to lean in such an hour as this ! 
That passionate heart of hers, once roused to love, 
Must have thenceforth forever some strong rock 
On which to spend its heaving billows, or 
Wear itself out in endless dashings wild. 
Poor tortured soul ! Poor hungry, aching heart ! 
That hour was past on which her life was staked, 
And she had lost. 

With a low, fearful cry, 
She wildly fell on supplicating knees 
Before her mother's portrait, in despair. 
Through blanched and piteous lips she faintly wailed 
And in the sweet tongue of her mother moaned. 



82 THE VOTARY. 

" Oh ! Madre, Madre ! " still slie sobbed and moaned. 
All through the long, long night, stretched on the floor, 
Beneath those dark and pitying eyes she lay, 
And, " Madre, Madre ! '^ the faint sobbing came. 



THE VOTARY. 83 



The sultry day was fainting fast to death. 

The torrid sky, like heated copper, beat 

Down heavily upon the feverish earth, 

As a dull headache presses on the brain ; 

The breezeless atmosphere was stagnant, and 

With hot and hazy vapor steamed and smoked. 

The torpid moon hung green and livid in 

A mouldy cloud, as in a festering shroud. 

Through which her blank and ghastly beams looked dim, 

And clad the earth in sickly, loathsome light. 

The stars, yestreen that twinkled joyously 

Down from their thought-high summits, sparsely now 

Were glimmering with dull, lack-lustre rays, 

And feeble flicker. 

Sweating Nature lay 
And reeked and panted, longing for the storm 
To bound down from the thunder-cloud, as leaps 
A fierce beast from his den foul with his breath. 

Distracted by Remorse and Conscience, — worn, 



84 THE VOTARY. 

Foot-sore and haggard, — pale with sleeplessness 

And travel, — with the wild delirium 

Of guilt, of love bereft, a^nd raving o'er 

That castaway and murdered love, by stealth 

And darkness Kudiger stole cowering back 

To his youth's home, made forfeit by his crime. 

He stood and glared with igneous eye upon 

The sky, and uttered fiercely, huskily, 

" Why linger there, thou storm ! Come down and bring 

The spirits of the damned that in thee hide, 

And let them loose upon my cursed head ! 

Storm fiends, attack me here ! 

Oh, challenge vain ! 
They mock and grin at me, but will not fall 
Upon me with their fury, and smite dead. 
Exulting in my pain with horrid scoffs. 
They will not ease my misery by death. 
Ye mouthing, damned imps, why, then, abide, 
And with your smothered venom strangulate I 

" Why do I stay from hurling myself down 

This precipice, that yawns so dark and deep ? 

There is no chasm deep or dark enough 

In which to hide me from eternity. 

Or in which I can lose this guilty soul ! 

My crime makes Immortality a curse ! 

Time's soothing balm, which healeth angry wounds^ 

Can never close this ulcer in my soul. 

I'd strive to cheat myself into belief 

That the soul dies with this vermivorous clod. 



THE VOTARY. 85 

But obstinate reason will not suffer me. 

Oil ! Wretch, self-tricked ! Where is ambition now 

That drove me on to this ? The trickster's fled 

And left me in my dire extremity. 

'Tis just that treason's edge is turned on me. 

" Oh God ! Eternal art Thou, and, they say, 

Eternally art just, and orderest all ! 

Didst Thou create me for damnation, then ; 

And was I then, from the beginning, doomed 

To sin, and fall, and to inherit hell ; 

A plaything made by Thee to serve Thy end, 

Meant to be broken, when that end is served, 

The fragments to be flung aside in hell ? 

No ! Elimsy pretext of excuse ! I feel 

In this mad, cowering Conscience all the shame, 

And see the blush of guilt it cannot hide. 

Straight on to hell the current drifts me fast ; 

In hell I will not deign to mingle with 

Those coward fiends who cast the blame of their 

Damnation on their Maker. I will sit 

Apart, a solitary demon, while 

My great crime, and my moanless fortitude, 

Shall give me lofty place there. Even ye. 

Earth's oldest, earliest dead, long ages since 

Damned in the infancy of Adam's race, 

I'll teach another pang in sin's remorse." 



His grim face darkled with a look as black 
8 



86 THE VOTARY. 

As ever mortals wore. Eemorse itself, 
Robed in the ghastly mantle of despair, 
Dwelt in his soul. 

'^ But for this mortal term — 
How shall I pass it ; what my business here ? 
My idols once can be such never more. 
This dreadful quake of sin has hurled them down, 
And altered the whole color of my life 
To ashen gray from golden. Naught but ruth 
Can from the dying embers of my heart 
Be sifted out. IsTepenthe there is none. 
I'll go," — a sullen purpose glimmered o'er 
The deep eclipse of his remorseful soul, — 
"I'llroam this desert earth in quest of change, 
A felon sentenced, waiting for my doom. 
If Death arrest me on my pilgrimage 
And bear me to my punishment full soon, 
'Twere better so, to die at least were change." 
He cast his hopeless eyes around. 

" Oh, God ! " 
He groaned, " when last I trod this steepy slope 
Love and Ambition shone upon my soul. 
And their rays crossed, although methought they blent. 
Both now forever vanished ! " 

A hard storm 
Of passionate remorse drove over him. 
Prone on the earth and clutching at the clods, 
He lay convulsed and quivering. 

" I will once 
Stand by thy virgin grave, my murdered love." 



THE VOTARY. 87 



He rose to go, when in his path appeared 
Old Mesr and hissed her horrid hate in taunts. 



^o 



" E'en in the shroud wouldst rob her of all peace ? 

What shouldst thou do, thou murderer, at her grave ? 

Ah, yes, you writhe ! She did not, not a groan ; 

She only faded, blasted by your love. 

These eyes beheld her wilting, even these, 

And this seared heart awoke to pity her ; 

Once more in life it knew a human throb. 

The grave-mould clouds her eyes, if worms have spared. 

Yes, slimy worms now tear her virgin flesh. 

And feast, luxurious, on her tender limbs. 

Methinks they should be grateful to thee for 

The dainty banquet, for thou sent it them ; 

But they are treacherous, for they'll feed on you 

One day ; but treachery will turn on them, 

For your polluted clay will poison them." 

His frenzied glare, that surely had appalled 

Aught but a witch like her, was horrible. 

In sudden rage the coward wish arose 

To deal a deadly blow upon a thing 

So foul. Remorse alone restrained 

His quivering hand, fierce throbbing for the stroke. 

Pale with deep hatred and unutterable wrath, 

He turned to go, lest his wild, coward rage 

And thirst for vengeance, — that delirious wish 

To smite and slay, of the near-frenzied soul. 

Which monstrous insult and indignity sting, — 



OO THE VOTARY. 

Should urge him to th' unmanly, dastard act. 

She saw his sore temptation and deep wrath, 

And th' impotent detestation in his face, 

And laughed a laugh of taunt and devilish glee. 

He stood in speechless horror, stony still. 

The hag clomh up a cliff that hung ahove 

The path where she had fallen on E-udiger, 

And tossed her long, gaunt arms, and yelled at him. 

He fled on swiftly, but he dared not go 

Unto the grave ; so on he fled, nor paused 

Until he reached the bleak and barren coast. 

Far o'er the waters out to sea he gazed. 

He saw naught but a dreary, boundless waste, 

Beaconless, hopeless, rayless, desolate ; 

And one lone ship, like his unresting soul 

At anchor in the harbor of despair. 

His grim conceit he fixed upon that ship, — 

That ship should bear him on his pilgrimage. 



THE VOTARY. 89 



VI. 



Sunset was blushing o'er far Ocean's waste. 

The glowing orb, that dipped below the wave, 

A sheen of glory o'er the waters cast, 

And went superbly down with princely pace. 

He left a thousand lingering splendors on 

The waters trembling, dimpling 'neath his smile, 

Reflecting back his parting look of love. 

Soon twilight's russet baldric zoned the heavens. 
The moon was not yet risen, but the stars 
Assembled on the sky's cool evening fields, 
And danced and flickered with a tremulous joy. 
Night's slanting shadows, like tall dusky spears, 
Glanced darkhng down and cut the silent waves. 

A stately ship held on her lonely course. 
Through her dim shrouds the night-birds of the sea 
With heavy flapping darted, and dull scream, 
And brushed the sails with their wide-finning wings. 
This, blending with the dreary, stridulous jar 
8* 



90 THE VOTARY. 

And sliiidder of tlie wind-struck slirouds, and the 
Masts' dismal creak, made liarsli discordancy. 
Mute, motionless, and brooding, at the poop 
Sat Rudiger alone, with bent, dark brow, 
And eyes still darker glancing in the wake. 
The words fell hoarsely from his stony lips. 

" Night on the waters, night upon my soul ! 
Dead, sullen night broods ever on my soul ! 
The waves sleep cold and dark ; how cold and dark 
They sweep above the heads of myriads wrecked ! 
How calm and peaceful lie the dead below. 
Unheeding all, e'en this black load of sin 
That floats above their deep and silent beds. 
Oh, death ! I envy them ! 

Ye treacherous waves, 
I long to see ye rise and shake yourselves, 
Like a strange, mighty monster, roar and rage 
And swell in turbulence, and lash the stars 
Till they retreat before your rude assault, 
And leave the world in pitchy darkness ; then 
Attack the shore and tear that paramours 
Caressing breast, until she bleed and cringe 
Beneath the pain. Why, this most flattering earth, 
Embracing ye with all her thousand shores. 
But plays the wanton with ye, to ajDpease, 
And make ye kind to her polluted sons ; 
Black souls, earth's scourges, who upon thy breast 
This moment plot and perpetrate vile crimes, 
And ye rise not to smite them as ye might. 



THE VOTARY. 91 

Me fain to die God wills to live, and so 
Nor earth nor ocean yield to me a grave." 
He stood convulsed ; and at the sea shook his 
Clenched fists ; then words most horrible to hear 
He spoke. 

Two figures now came up on deck. 
The elder was a tall, imposing man 
Enveloped in an ample cloak. His mien 
Was stately and commanding. Thin gray locks 
Pell on his broad pale brow, 'neath which dark eyes 
With an intense-and steady lustre beamed. 
His face wore that close, fixed suppression of 
A strong expression, rather than its dearth, — 
Oft seen on shut, secretive visages, — 
Impenetrable immobility. 

The mouth was firm, and schooled to give no key 
Unto the secrets of his inner life. 
A lady leant on him ; tall, too, and fair. 
With a white, saintly face and clear gray eyes, 
And brown hair parted in smooth classic bands. 
Her graceful bearing, too, was dignified. 
Spite of the softness of her virgin mien. 
They moved toward Rudiger, who had not stirred, 
But sat and gazed with hard and stony eyes 
Up at. the stars. The elder spoke to him. 

" How differently men look at the stars ! 
Some reach up to them, others hardly get 
Beyond the limit of earth's atmosphere. 
They who have known sore trouble, heavy hearts 



92 THE VOTARY. 

Down-laden by bereavement or remorse, 
Learn oftenest to peer beyond the stars ; 
All tbouglitful and capacious souls, 'tis true. 
Extend their gaze beyond this narrow world. 
As well the happy, smiled upon by Fate, 
As they who 'neath her iron brow despond : 
But it is the peculiar solace of 
World-sickened hearts for comfort to look up. 
You, fellow-voyager, are clear beyond the stars ! '' 
With chilling voice, made E-udiger reply : 
" Farther the other way some souls extend, 
If Hell lies downward in eternal night." 
A pained look in the lady's holy eyes 
Made him repent of his discourteous speech. 

" Were all pure, innocent like thee, man need 
No farther look for heaven than his own heart. 
As thou well knowest, lady. 'Tis not so : 
The most are black and foul, as thou art white 
And stainless, and they find hell in their souls. 
A vile deed turns a heart of love and peace 
Into a turbulent sink of slime and hate. 
As one small poison grain drugs a whole cup." 

" And knowst thou not, sir, of the antidote. 
One drop of which will rectify the cup. 
And leave it pure and harmless as at first ? 
Man's days are passed in this alternate round 
Of poisoning, and restoring his life's tone. 
Sin is the poison, penitence the cure." 



THE VOTARY. 9.*^ 

" The voice and thoughts of innocence again. 
Though angels urge repentance upon man, 
He, drop by drop, still spills the poison in. 
And gradually contaminates his life 
'Till 'tis as putrid as rank, stagnant pool, 
So thick with filth no power can disinfect ; 
And all trace of its 2:)ristine purity 
Evaporate and flee hack to its God, 
And leave the soul more foul than bilge-water. 
An absolute corruption such as that 
By the great law of nature sure must sink.'' 
*' Men's guardian angels on fresh stains of sin 
Upon men's souls a tear of pity drop, — 
Which often will efface the taint, for God 
Regards in mercy weak humanity. 
Repentance and appeal to the Lord Christ 
Will surely wipe away blots deepest set." 

" Sweet lady, faith so pure befits your soul. 

The guardian angels of full many men 

Flee from them, outraged by their arrant crimes. 

Who then doth shed the neutralizing tear. 

Or stir th' abandoned soul to penitence ? 

'Tis fearful, maiden ; you, so innocent, 

Had you world-knowledge such as mine, would shrink 

And quake and wither at the dreadful truth, 

The black sin-depths of our humanity. 

On every side, o'er this entire fair globe. 

Stalks man in closest company with Sin. 

You walk upon life's busy, brisk highway. 



94 THE VOTARY. 

Still Sin is at man's elbow unrebuked, 
And he lists to his counsels yieldingly, 
And Satan's hate doth pass into his breast." 
A troubled look rose in the maiden's eyes. 

" Those angels ne'er desert men utterly. 
Some memories of love and purity 
Still cling to every humanity. 
Though many bar the sacred spirits out, 
They yet will linger, and go sometimes in 
To hearts in last extremity of sin." 
Fervent belief was on her earnest face 
And gilt her raptured eyes with holy light. 

" Faith," said her sire, " is the possession of 
Some favored souls. Because you have it not, 
Wield not your spade of unbelief to root 
From her heart's soil its native growth of faith." 

Instinctively the youth shrank, and forbore 
To hurl back his soul's bitter answer, which 
Would have too sorely stung the maiden's breast 
By its mad daring and profane assault 
Of her heart's darling trust. He sat quite mute, 
And gazed with sullen and half fearful eyes 
Back on the vessel's troubled, foaming trail. 
The sage, his eye intently fixed upon 
The face of Rudiger, addressed him thus : 

" An angry wrinkle on the sleeping sea 



THE VOTARY. 95 

We leave, as a weak insect, crawling o'er 
The face of a strong man, relapsed in dreams, 
Wakes a disturbed, though an unconscious, frown. 
With what ease, waking, he might crush the gnat 
Might the roused ocean overwhelm our ship. 
We draw a wake as stormy as some men 
Leave on the dreary waste of life. It is 
A rich and most suggestive theme for thought ; 
Most rich for him who has left many years 
Behind him in his life's rough passage." 

Slow, 
Through clammy lips, the joyless answer came. 
" A past misdeed rides ghastly on these waves, — 
Which in oblivion's waters will not sink, — 
As a stark corpse, whose grave old ocean was, 
Risen and swollen to gigantic size, 
Rides upright in the ship's wake, frighting souls 
Of daring tars, as it comes stifly on, 
And haunts the vessel with its fearful form." 

" Now, one, from that strained stare, would fancy that 
You saw the spectre now, that your few years 
Were freighted with experience such as moulds 
Your sombre fancy into real form." 

" A word," he muttered hoarsely, " were enough, 
The footfall of the lightest word, to start 
Down from the soul's high, lonely mountain-tops 
An avalanche of memory, before 



96 THE VOTARY. 

Whose sweep all living thoughts are rooted up ; 

Which leaves behind it utter barrenness 

On which henceforth no mortal joy may sprout." 

" That memory must be o'erladen, then, 
With the remorse for some inhuman crime. 
No crime, scarce one like Judas's, can scorch 
The soul to a dead, hopeless cinder, which 
The breath of penitence and true remorse 
May yet not fan into a living coal. 
Contrition's a deft handmaiden to relight 
And kindle up the dying flame of peace." 

" Some crimes there are which whelm theii workers in 

Inevitable damnation, —7- think not else. 

As for most poisons is an antidote, 

Yet, if the venom of the foaming dog 

Infect the blood once, what will kill the taint ? 

The soul, sin-crusted, blossomeUi no more 

Than the baked lava plains, round Etna's mouth. 

Yield the rich fruitage of New England meads : 

If a wild schemer seeks to till such ground. 

The wretch dies delving at his fruitless toil." 

The maiden shuddered at these desperate words, 
And rose and went below, while E-udiger 
Pursued the tenor of his wretched thoughts ; 
And when, exhausted by his ravings, he 
Paused breathless, thus the sage addressed him. 



THE VOTARY. 97 

"Youtli! 
Your words are dark and hint at awfiil crimes. 
Sorrow could ne'er have crushed you so, nor care ; 
Kemorse for a misdeed, or many, like 
God's brand upon Cain's brow, is burnt upon 
The forehead of your soul. I know the mark. 
Th' inflexible justice of the courts of heaven 
Has fixed the woful consequence of sin, 
Remorse, upon the malefactor, and 
Has made atonement for his sin on earth 
Inevitable ; which, if penitence 
Give strength, with patience and humility. 
To suffer, soon, like a grim jailer, Death 
Unlocks his prison gates, and he goes forth 
Into the sinless airs of heaven, where Christ, 
The great Atoner, waits his penitents. 
When your accusing soul has lashed itself 
Into exhaustion, then reaction may 
Ensue, and with it the conviction, — which 
Upon God's warrant you must recognize, — 
That you, through Christ, may win your rescue yet.'^ 
Apostle-like his words, and mien benign. 

^^ Tell me this first, ere i^us you bid me hope ; 
Will the red, hungry ranks of seething hell 
E'er throng the white and silver courts of heaven ? 
Will Satan wear his crown of light again ? 
His is my case ; and this is the fine straw 
You toss within the drowning wretch's clutch. 
When the fell, furtive, vengeful foe of God, — 
9 



98 THE VOTARY. 

The unrelenting, rancorous lord of liell, 
Who, in defeat disastrous reareth yet 
His glory-shorn but daring head against 
His supernal King, in unsubmissive pride, — 
When he is blest, then there is hope for me. 
This is most wondrous comfort, solace rare." 

" Nay ! nay ! wild, mad, rash soul, this is sin's most 
Pernicious, fatal blight, to warp and cloud 
The reason thus with its curst, loathsome film, 
Until it droop and languish, withering 
Like roses cramped in baleful spider's web ; 
Else you'd not venture to compare your crime 
With that revolt infernal which to hell 
Drove the seditious fiend. What mortal man 
Has power to sin as had that seraph, who. 
Once high in heaven, rebelled against his God, 
And for his crime was hurled to that bad eminence, 
The throne of hell, in endless banishment ? 

" But for the atonement of our Lord, 'tis true, 

The punishment attached to a misdeed 

Into the misty future farther might 

Outstretch, than man's extreme ca^Dacity 

Of thought could ever reach. But, know, His love 

Divine saves man from such appalling fate, 

If he but grasps the hand held out to him. 

'Tis in your strait that Christ in pity most. 

And mercy, looks upon the penitent. 

In the dark night of self-conviction, and 



THE VOTARY. 99 

The soul's despairing consciousness of sin, 

His grace shines like a moon with soothing beam 

And rays of love and mercy all divine. 

" Time still rolls on. New things will soon be old, 

Old things are growing older. Art but creates 

Her monuments of beauty to augment 

The heap the Judgment must destroy, and naught 

Mundane is durable ; but still endures 

The- universal love and mercy of 

The Infinite. 'Tis writ on everything ; 

On all the variegated earth and sky, 

The sun and moon, those fairest twins of space ; 

But first and last on man, whose intellect, 

And faculty for love, can never be 

Submerged in utter darkness, nor be lost. 

" Youth, I have known despair as deep as yours. 
The drought of sin my young years sterilized, 
And turned that green and flowery mead into 
A burnt and barren, desolated waste. 
The traces of the desiccation, youth. 
Disfigure still my -life ; like a hale plain 
Once by the scathing elements laid waste. 
Though many summers' healing, balmy breath 
Has wakened it to pristine life and bloom, 
Yet the black stumps, like scars on a fair face, 
Tell of the tempests past to travellers. 
Such peace as mine 'tis in your power to gain ; 
Calm strength to bear the stings of memory ; 



100 THE VOTARY. 

With patience and content to gather all 
The sterile wastes of life in mercy yet 
May yield. 

Check, poor, young, blighted soul, in time, 
Check this blind, headlong tempest of despair ! 
Poor victim of the devil's tempting craft, 
Let not the fiend exult more in your fall ; 
A meagre triumph to the spoiler give. 
Distract, remorseful, laboring, ship-wrecked soul ; 
Steer, storm-tossed mariner, for this friendly isle. 
You may not gather flowers from its hard sides, 
But 'tis a haven from the deadly storm." 

He listened, passive, to the sage's words. 
At times a glow would climb up to his brow, 
A moment linger, then fall back again, 
And leave it dark and wan as 'twas before ; 
As sometimes, ere the morning fairly shines 
Above the eastern slopes, quick, flashing gleams 
Will struggle with the cheerless dun of night, 
And flush with bright but transitory ray 
The sullen arch of darkness. 

" I cannot 
Land ever on your flattering isle of hope ; 
Your haven but perdition is to me. 
Upon the sharp spikes of your rock of hope 
My rotten bark, dashed by the waves, is split 
And swamped, sucked by the hungry eddy down." 

He rose, and, muttering words unmeet to hear, 



THE VOTARY. 101 

Broke from the sage's long restraint of speech. 
But, spite of all his unappeased despair, 
When that pure stream of counsel ceased to flow 
Upon his anguished head, he felt as one 
Who goes from out the sunshine into shade. 



'Twas later in the night, and Eudiger 
Still kept his post in deep and sullen thought. 
Tlie gracious moon rode her triumphal path 
Through her thick-crowding, happy suhject-stars. 
As once the palmy Orient's Empress through 
Marhle Palmyra's thronged and templed streets. 
In her chaste cloak of virgin-silver light 
She moved along with peerless majesty, 
Not coveting Sol's royal purple robes. 

The Sage joined Kudiger in his lone watch, 
And in these words gave language to his thoughts. 
^' How beautiful the heavens in every phase ! 
When morn's first blush is streaming up the east, 
Burnished with molten gold by garish noon, 
In sunset's listed glory richly dyed, 
Or dusked in pensive twilight's tender shades. 
But, oh ! most solemn, beautiful, sublime, 
When the high hush of starlight resteth there, 
And Night with muffled sandals paces on 
Her noiseless way through her mute, mystic realm. 
Thus, since the stars rang out earth's matin peal. 
O'er the lulled globe she follows Evening with 
9* 



102 THE VOTARY. 

Her silent sceptre, and tli' empyrean still 

Shall yield unto her empire vespertine, 

'Till Heaven's trump shall rend the awful hush, 

And the roused stars ring loud earth's curfew chime. 

Still, still, old Night, thou speakest of thy God, 

In two mysterious attributes of Him, 

Silence and Mystery, which are of Him ; 

Eternal Silence, speaking but through signs. 

And mystery too deep for man to pierce ; 

Thou teachest us to voice these thoughts to Him. 

Thy words are worlds, an universe Thy thought, 

And space a page made eloquent by Thee." 

He paused, and gazing upward mutely stood, 

In silent, rapt abstraction, worshipping. 

It was one of those rare and blessed hours 

"When, 'neath the influence of nature lone, 

The soul, by an instinctive reach, ascends 

Into its higher, spiritual state ; 

And, shaking off its fleshly shackles, gains 

Foreshadowings of immortality ; 

And takes in, with one grasp and grand soul-stro tch, 

A sense of God, His attributes. His plans 

Revealed, and those revealing rapidly, 

His love, power, and consummate majesty. 

The soul gains foothold in such hours, from whieli 

To gaze with fearless and undaunted eyes 

Adown the avenue of Eternity ; 

A strength to meet Time's baffling questions, which, 

By Revelation, is imparted thus 



THE VOTARY. 103 

To those who reverently, strongly strive 

To comprehend the Infinite. 

When hours like these are past, men ne'er relapse 

Into the utter men they were before, 

But are thenceforth forever nearer God. 

The bitter tones of Rudiger aroused 
The rapt sage from his high abstraction. 

"Wouldst 
Thou hear the story of my blasted soul ? " 

" Fve guessed already, youth, thy history ; 
I gathered from your ravings its main drift. 
But, if it please you, I will hear the whole." 

" Hear of a youth mad with his thirst for Fame, 
And blinded by that master passion. He 
Turned traitor to his only love, and pledged 
His false faith where ambition led ; nor from 
His treasonous delusion waked, until 
His falsitude had killed his heart's true love. 
Then, coward, murderer, traitor that he was. 
He recognized the doom his crime had wrought 
For his own soul, eternal misery." 

" One query. What of her you wedded ? For, 
Methinks, she was your victim too, — perchance 
Most pitiable, for your deceit to her 
Was meaner and more stinging. If she loved 
Thee, greater was her wrong, her fate, most like, 



104 THE VOTARY. 

Harder and bitterer far. And yet you say 
Naught of your guilt toward lier." 

A direful look 
Rose in the wretch's eyes. 

" Poor passion's slave ! 
Since I rushed from thee rageful, maddened, stung 
To cursing by thy fell discovery, 
My heart's great woe hath banished thought of thee. 
How must it fare with thee ? 

Oh fearful thought ! 
Man ! man ! what hast thou done ; why art thou hero ? 
Has my hell-torment even now begun ; 
Art thou an emissary of the devil, placed 
To cross and taunt me on my way to hell ? 
A second thunderbolt ! Wast not content 
With the despair thou sawest, but must gloat 
Over my writhings 'neath another pang? 
Sybilla murdered by my deed, God ! 
Such is my work — and Adelaide," — 

"Nay, then 
Sybilla's fate sits lightly on thy soul 
To that of her thou namest Adelaide, 
Poor wretch, deceived and cheated into love. 
And then deserted and abandoned to 
Despair and jealousy. If still she lives. 
She is, most like, a ruined, shattered wreck, 
Stung to committal of whatever rash 
And fatal deed may offer first to drown 
Her burning sense of wrong and injury. 
Perchance she has been driven to suicide, 



THE VOTARY. 105 

Or to some other uglier crime ; wliate'er 
She does redoundeth to thy shame, thy guilt, 
Thy condemnation hy high Heaven." 

" Hold, man ! 
Whither wouldst goad me ? Would you have me leap 
Into yon pitchy spume ? " 

The sage fell back 
As if to give him space to do his threat. 

" You will not, dare not, knowing if you do. 

All hope is o'er ; for thus you fling away 

The time in which salvation may be wrought. 

Wofully dark to-morrow looks to you ; 

You sorely dread it, and forebode the hours 

Of torment and remorse 'twill bring to you. 

It now seems lead ; when it is lost beyond 

Recovery 'twill seem like purest gold, 

Which you flung from you and would fain have back. 

'Tis now your serf from whom you may exact 

Good service, — lose it, it accuser turns.'' 

" Remorseless seer ? Who made thee thus my judge ? 
Well, art thou satisfied ? 

You will not now 
Deny that I am damned ? You cannot. Speak ! " 

" Ay ! if God lets you damn yourself. He is 
Our judge ; our deeds come up as witnesses 
Against us, and our consciences arraign. 
We stand or fall by these ; and it is a 



106 THE VOTARY. 

Tribunal by which all would be condemned, 
Were not our judge most merciful. 

You, youth, 
Within sin's regions rashly ventured, and 
Sin's nature is to penetrate all souls 
Who trust themselves within its foul domain, 
E'en those protected by the thickest coats 
Of good intent, as does earth's potent damp 
The strongest walls of stone and firm cement. 
Invade. And those who tarry in sin's torrid clime 
Must not expect to 'scape the pestilence ; 
So you have caught the infection hard enough 
Most leeches to discourage of a cure. 
Now, youth, heed closely ! 

Though you told not half 
Your sin's enormity, — on strength of that 
Your soul to hell eternal had consigned. 
Yet even now, when you stand forth revealed 
In this worse guiltiness, this double crime. 
Yet are you not beyond the remedy. 
But, youth, mistake not ; do not think to 'scape 
Unscathed, unharmed ; that you can never do. 
The pestilence will leave you marred, defaced. 
Though you recover, you will come out blotched. 
And stained, and scarred, by the malignant plague, 
Yet glad to convalesce e'en on those terms. 
Nay ! nay ! You cannot now see clearly through 
The loathsome film and scabs, with which disease 
Stops up your eyes. When they are healed, you will. 
I tell thee, youth, the time is coming when, 



THE VOTARY. 107 

Worn out witli tlie mad tossings of despair, 

The rage of the plague spent, you fain would smoke 

The Indian calumet with Penitence, 

But yield your life a deodand for sin." 

He stirred not from his post through the long night, 

But sat and brooded o'er his thoughts, until 

The laggard sun with blank, faint beam looked forth. 

Lusty and rosy red who set last night. 

But with the morning's earliest light there struck 

Faint, glimmering rays to his benighted soul. 

It was not time yet for them to shine full 

Into his soul, with radiance unobscured — 

And the Sage murmured, as he met his eye, — 

" 'Tis well, the leaven's at work ; in season due 
It will ferment ; leave all the work to time." 



108 THE VOTARr. 



VII. 

The exile landed on tlie lonely beach, 

Whence three long years before he had embarked 

In flight from maddening memories of those shores. 

Washed in the tears of penitence and faith 

His blinded eyes were healed to clearer sight, 

And saw before his homeward way stretch plain. 

A pilgrim, back across the sea he came. 

To seek that shrine serene of peace and grace, 

In quest of which he'd roamed the world in vain. 

But not long tarried he by that bleak coast. 

Although his feet now pressed the sacred soil. 

He yet must journey ere the shrine be reached. 

A duty for his hands delayed far in 

At shore. He longed to reach its scene and know 

It done ; and so with resolute heart he set 

His steadfast face in the direction of 

The place wherein he knew that duty lay. 

And as he stoutly wended thither on, 

His soul stretched on, far on, before his feet. 



THE VOTARY. 109 

While tlirougli the old world swiftly hurrying 
With restless, feverish haste, his way had been 
Revealed to him. 'Twas Adelaide he sought ; 
His duty lay with that proud lady ; — so 
On from the sea he went, nor paused until 
He saw again the scenes familiar, where 
He once had dwelt with her. 

'Twas twilight when 
The Votary came among those scenes again. 
The landscape lay bathed in the amber shades 
Of that grave hour, which follows at the heels 
Of setting sun, — like a brown Gypsy maid. 
With listless, lingering step and pensive mien, 
Who saunters in a monarch's royal train, 
For love of some fair youth in the gay band. 
There was a tender stillness all around, 
On which no worldly bustle harshly broke ; 
For all things human, soothed by Nature's calm 
And serious brow, particij)ated in 
Her twilight hush of sweet repose and peace ; 
And there was rest of Nature and of Man. 

A chime of vesper bells was summoning 
The people to the evening service. They 
In quiet converse, and with sober pace 
Were strolling churchward. 

Rudiger joined in 
The grave and thoughtful throng. Within the church 
The hues of twilight farther were subdued 
By a soft, mellow light, that, streaming through 
10 



110 THE VOTARY. 

The stained panes of the chancel window, filled 
The gothic aisles with a religious shade, 
Half-radiant and half-sad, and stilled the soul 
To peace and deep devoutness. 

On his knees 
The wanderer breathed his pilgrim's vows, and felt 
That he had reached the shrine of grace at last. 
When from his fervent prayers he raised his head. 
He cast a glance across the church toward 
A stall well known to him of old, and saw. 
Bathed in a flood of chequered light that poured 
Down from an oriel window, a white face 
Of rarest loveliness, the hazel eyes 
Regarding him intently. 

It was she. 
His wronged wife, Adelaide ; their eyes revealed 
The mutual recognition in one look. 
A faint rose-hue stained the pure whiteness of 
Her perfect face ; but no excitement, or 
Surprise beyond, her countenance revealed. 
He was amazed by her demeanor, so 
Serene and placid ; and could scarce believe 
That pale, calm face the haughty Adelaide's. 
His eyes dwelt long upon each feature, and 
Bead their subdued expression, saw the trace 
Of the heart-struggle that had mastered so 
Their once imperious and impassioned lines ; 
And thought that chastened and half-mournful look 
Into a higher beauty far had raised 
Her features' rare perfectitude of line. 



THE VOTAKY. Ill 

Her beauty touched and moved him now far more 

Than had her proudly radiant air of old. 

Beneath that smooth mask, which her woman's hand 

Had hastily put on, he could not see 

Her heart, — like a tamed beast, grown sudden wild, — 

Turn on its keeper, nor the struggle which 

Tried, to the last strain, all her woman's strength 

Before she throttled the fierce creature, and 

Thrust it back foaming to its chains again. 

A merciful and pitying Power it is 

That nerves these little, fragile, tender hands 

To triumph in such furious combats as 

Would sorely try the toughest masculine thews. 

Ah ! loving woman ! Little do men rock 

How often you achieve in secrecy 

Such victories, and give no outward sign. 

By an instinctive impulse, in the porch 

They met and touched each other's palms. Again 

The purity of her white face was tinged. 

As closed on hers his fingers in warm clasp ; 

But that was all — she thrilled not now beneath 

His presence and his touch as once. 'Twas plain 

She was victorious o'er her passions, and 

Had from the contest gained some secret power. 

Which, like an amulet, preserved her from 

Their sweeping onset. 

Calmly by his side 
She walked in silence, till he spoke. 

He told 



112 THE VOTARY. 

Of his long wanderings ; spoke plainly of 
His desperate sonl that hurried him along, 
Almost unheeding, through historic scenes, 
And classic j)laces, and o'er holy ground — 
Which hut to talk of once had set his blood 
Awhirl through his tense tingling veins, but which 
He hurried weary, listless, through. His soul, 
In the dull* lethargy of its remorse. 
Woke not up to the inspiration of 
Great scenes and deeds by great ones of all time, 
And missed their mighty lessons. 

Then he told 
Of one eve when 'mid Alpine solitudes 
He stood alone, so near the heavens lie deemed 
He felt the winds that blow among the stars. 
All day amid th' eternal hills, alone. 
He'd clambered venturously, with no guide. 
All day his solitary soul had mused 
In the sublime and awful hush of those 
Calm solitudes, for ages undisturbed 
By human jar from their prime quietude. 
Here in great Nature's most august retreat, 
Eternal silence and grand loneliness, 
A keener vision poured a flood of light 
In on the fearful darkness of his soul ; 
And all grew lucid that was black before. 
The Sage's words came back then to his soul. 
Like guests, who had come once, and found the haU 
Unlighted, so had gone away, — but now 
Returned and found it all illumined, and 



THE VOTARY. 113 

So entered in. Oh, welcome, welcome guests ! 
Conviction hand in hand with duty came, 
And, in that blessed hour, the image of 
Her bruised heart, which it was his to heal, 
Had risen before him ; and, instinctively, 
His own heart turned to her, and sought her from 
That very hour ; and had not paused till now. 
This sweet hour which united them again. 
Much more he said of consolation and 
Of penitence, and peace and hope for her. 

" If thou wilt but receive the penitent. 

He comes to lay his service at thy feet. 

Knowing the past, and all its history. 

If thou wilt take this shattered heart to thine, 

Its ruined chambers shall contain no thought 

Other than faithful tenderness for thee.'' 

She listened silently with downcast eyes. 
And when he paused she raised them once to his. 
And took one look down deep into his heart, 
And then they fell again. 

" So, thou hast come 
Thy duty to perform, which undischarged 
Had haunted and accused thee. It is weU. 
Ay, it is well. — Nay, speak not now, I pray ! " 
She raised her hand with supplicating air 
As he essayed to speak. 

" Good-night, now ! Leave 
Me here. To-morrow I will send to thee, 
10* 



114 THE VOTARY. 

And then come to me if thou wilt. Ah, yes," — 
Kepeating this her sweet tones faltered, — " Yes, 
If then thou canst, then come to me ! " 

He looked 
All the surprise and wonder in his mind. 

*^ If thou wilt have it so, I must suhmit. 
Good-night, my fair one, then, — all angels bless 
Thy couch, and sweeten sleep with happy dreams ! 
Dream thou of joy to come ! But, Adelaide, 
Let thy dear summons find me early out ! " 

He took her hand, which she half hastily 
Withdrew, but checked herself and let him press 
His lips to it, — then coldly took it back. 
But, as her eyes met his, she gave it back, 
As if she would repair her coldness, and 
She said in something tenderer tone, 

" Good-night 
Indeed, then, Eudiger ; but, oh ! I charge 
Forget not thou my words. AVhen thou'st received 
My summons, then come to me, if thou mayst." 

And so they parted ; he, unboding of 
Aught but an early meeting in the morn ; 
But she with the dull, dead conviction that 
It should not be, like ice chill at her heart. 
Her eyes with unrestrained tenderness 
Kan over now, as they gazed after his 
Retreating form. 



THE VOTARY. 115 

" The last, last look," she sighed. 
" But haste, haste, hands ! Your task awaits you, come ! " 

She hastened in. 

Upon the morrow came. 
At dawn, from Adelaide to Rudiger 
This missive : 

"Adelaide to Eudiger. 

" Me, Eudiger, you wedded for j^our wife. 

On the pretence of love as honest and 

As passionate as ever man professed. 

Naught else had ever won me, and naught short 

Can ever hold me. Hearts like Adelaide's 

Are fire and snow commingled, love and pride. 

Think not so poorly of me as to deem 

Your pity or your penitence could fill 

The void left by your falsely plighted vows. 

But stay : I do not purpose to upbraid. 

This time I have anticipated long, 

When you would wander back and offer to 

Devote a life of penitence to me. 

Although you're tardy, yet you're come at last. 

This time you mean me no deceit. Your heart 

Has dealt in falsehood all it ever will. 

And that has wrecked it. Well do I believe 

You yield allegiance to no love on earth. 

Save such as pity forces you to pay 

To me whom you have so insulted, wronged. 



116 THE VOTARY. 

So, when you talk of love there is deceit, 
Not by design, but witless, self-deceit ; 
For pity, and stern-purposed duty, the 
Sad oifsprings of your hearty penitence. 
Have in atonement driven you back to me. 
I've long foreseen this last sore trial. 

Ah! 
If I were now the being that I was. 
If these years, and this hard experience, had 
Not tutored me by griefs correcting hand, 
And taught my passionate, rebellious heart 
The dignity of patience 'neath its wrong. 
And the most sweet and holy beauty of 
Divine forgiveness to the wronger, — were 
I the proud, restive Adelaide of old, — 
With what a blast of scorn and ire should I 
Have overwhelmed you, daring to seek me. 
The woman you so humbled by deceit. 
By suffering though cast down my pride still lives, 
No more presumptuous, wicked, rearing its 
Bold, unsubmissive front in face of Heaven ; 
But still lives on, a nobler thing than erst. 
And makes a hard judge of my weak, fond heart. 
Still am I Adelaide, and ne'er will stoop 
To be restored through pity to the bliss 
Of hearing thee claim me thine own. 

No ! Though 
To live beneath thine eyes, to touch thine hand. 
To feel thy seeking lips pressed to mine own. 
To thrill with love and rapture in thine arms, — 



THE VOTARY. 



in 



The little circle of thy clasping arms, — 

An empire richer far than earth's wide hounds, 

In which I'd rather dwell sole empress, than 

Reign throned in light, the queen of myriad worlds, — 

Though happiness no higher can my soul 

Conceive or covet in her wildest dreams, 

And naught heside can ever satisfy, — 

Yet do I spurn it all, ere owe it to 

Your pity or your penitence. This is 

The resolution of my struggling heart. 

If thou hadst, E-udiger, come to me as 

My true and loyal lover, — were the past 

With its dark, fearful memories forgot, — 

Hadst thou hut torn thy heart from all its graves, 

And in this present now couldst live, and on 

This present rest thy future, — if thy love 

Were not forever buried in 07ie grave, — 

And if thou couldst disclaim those sentiments 

Of pity and of duty, — I would cast 

All pride, or memory of my wrong away, 

And hail thee home my glad heart's rightful lord ! 

What were my joy ! 

Ah ! eloquent heart, thou hast 
Voiced thy petition in unguarded phrase ! 
But so well know I that your love is not 
And never was, and never can be mine, 
♦That I may say securely to you, seek 
Me now within the hour if you can come, 
As only I would take you, ivholly mine ; 
But else ne'er see me more. 



118 THE VOTARY. 

I do enjoin 
Thee else to leave this place forever ; and 
Dwell henceforth far from me, where I may ne'er 
See, hear, nor know, aught of thee. 

Do not think 
Again to blind me, — for you could not, — if 
You came dissembling, in your pity, I 
Should read the truth ere you could utter word. 
'T would be the bitterest deceit ; yes, the 
Mosb deadly insult, and the foulest wrong, 
Should you again seek to delude me. — No ! 
I fear it not. Upon your penitence 
I charge you, then, ne'er see me more but as 
I have enjoined you, Rudiger. 

In heaven 
Not she who simply loved you best, — but she 
Who loved you first and best, and whom 
Your heart acknowledges, will claim you. I 
Come not between you and Sybilla there. 

" My dreaded task is ended now, — but ere 
Communication 'twixt us twain be closed 
Forever, take thou, from her heart of hearts, 
The pardon and farewell of 

Adelaide." 

He read the scroll with sinking heart, then fell 
Upon his knees in contrite agony. 

" Poor, desolate, proud heart," he murmured, " bent 



THE VOTARY. 119 

And broken by my crime, to God 
I do commit thee in tby lonely grief. 
Thoii'rt right ; I dare dissimulate no more. 
Farewell, forever ! " 

Fervently he prayed, 
Then rose, and ere an hour was far from thence. 



She sat with flushed cheeks, hoping 'gainst all hope, 

Until the sun went down ; yet still she sat, 

With whitening lips, and eyes that caught each shade 

Of evening as it gathered in the west. 

But twilight came on gently, and then hope 

Set, too, forever. 

Paler still she grew, 
And cold and passive ; looking as if all 
Her soul were concentrated in one thought. 
The vesper-bells struck out. She slowly rose 
And sought the churcli as yesternight, a shade 
More white, but otherwise unaltered to 
The close watch of a hundred curious eyes. 
Her head in prayer was bowed long, and her heart 
Went up in the low cry, " Grant us thy peace ! " 



120 THE VOTARY. 



VIII. 

As to its high and lonely eyrie back 

The eagle vaults on eager mounting wing, 

Who in earth's vapors for a day has strayed ; 

So swoops the soul back which has ventured down 

From its lone heights of thought and intellect 

Into the fogs of sin and misery : 

Alit upon its towering peak it sits, 

And broods in contemplation lone and rapt : 

And so the mind of Rudiger returned 

To studiousness with keen avidity. 

Among devout and pious men, whose work 

Was one of earnest, patient ministry 

In the uncleanest haunts of sin and shame, 

He labored on in expiation of 

The crime that had disfigured all his youth. 

Hard study and hard labor both were his. 

All day he taught and preached, and prayed and toiled, 

And ministered to souls and bodies of 

The doers and the victims of all crimes 

In which the abodes of sin and shame abound. 



THE VOTARY. 121 

At night he pored until near daybreak o'er 
Th' complexities of theologic lore. 

He now redressed his early fallacy,-^ 

That which exalts mind high above all else, 

And makes the combat for the world's applause 

The highest heroism of a life. 

He fathomed now the mighty truth that Love, — 

Love, the sole axis on which earth is swung, — 

Is the prime essence of the Deity, 

And Intellect subservient to Love ; 

And that true glory is to serve, and bleed 

If need be, in Love's blessed cause ; and that 

Love's triumphs and Love's honors are life's best. 

Her service noblest, sweetest ; her reward 

Completed joy, and an immortal crown. 



The years rolled on, and to the brotherhood, 
With whom dwelt Kudiger, there came a call, 
From o'er the ocean, for their order's aid 
In a far field deplorably debased. 



11 



122 THE VOTARY. 

Devoted men were prayed for — zealots wlioiii 
Mucli deprivation and all sacrifice 
Would neither hinder nor intimidate. 
And Eudiger, the foremost volunteer, 
Embarked upon the mission joyfully. 
And thus he solved his life's deep mystery. 

" To teach all men the everlasting truth, 

The blest, eternal truth of perfect Love, 

I will go forth. I'll preach it far and wide. 

To earth's last threshold will I pierce my way, 

And speak to all the dwellers there of Love. 

Wherever men dwell in the tents of Hate, — 

For Hate supplants Love in the camps of Sin. — 

Uneasy wanderers upon the earth. 

Far ftom, and knowing not, the rest of Love, 

Will I repair and raise her banners there. 

All earth shall ring with my proclaiming voice. 

My heart's young hopes are forfeited to sin, 

And never can my soul return to them ; 

Sin breathed on them with autumn breath, and changed 

To leaden tints, and shades of russet brown. 

The green and golden hues of early dreams ; 

Sin snatched the costliest jewel of my life. 

That shed the golden glamour o'er my youth. 

In its foul greedy maw, and bore it off. 

Like the base, doltish fisherman who bolts 

With sensual greed the savory mussel, and 

Drops with the shell the perfect pearl, I seized 

The tempting morsel of Ambition's bait, 



THE VOTARY. 123 

And past recall lost love's divine repast. 
Henceforth to Love my life I dedicate, — 
God's Love, including every human phase, — 
And never shall my tongue he silenced in 
This mission till the grave doth stay my feet. 
Accept, great Power, my wrecked life's sacrifice, 
Accept, Eternal King, thy Votary. 



